OFFICIAL REPORT.



The House mot at Twelve of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Private Bills (Petition for additional Provision) (Standing Orders not complied with),—Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the Petition for additional Provision in the following Bill, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, namely:

London County Council (General Powers) Bill.

Ordered, That the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.

NOTTINGHAM CORPORATION BILL,—

to authorise the Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of the city of Nottingham and county of the same city to construct tramways and street improvements; to run motor omnibuses on additional routes; and for other purposes," presented, and read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time.

NEW WRITS.

New Writ for the Election of Two Members for Borough of Stockport, in the room of Spencer Leigh Hughes, Esq., deceased, and George James Wardle, Esq. (Chiltern Hundreds).—[Mr. Dudley Ward.]

New Writ for County of Kent (Dartford Division), in the room of James Rowlands, Esq., deceased.—[Mr. Dudley Ward.]

OVERSEAS TRADE (CREDITS AND INSURANCE).

Committee to consider of authorising the granting of Credits and the undertaking of Insurances for the purpose of re-establishing Overseas Trade and the
payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any sums required for granting Credits for such purpose (King's Recommendation signified), upon Monday next.—[Lord Edmund Talbot.]

SUPREME COURT (PRIZE, &c., DEPOSIT ACCOUNT, 1918–19).

Copy ordered, "of the Account of the Receipts and Payments of the Assistant Paymaster-General for Supreme Court business on behalf of the Admiralty Division in Prize for the year ended the 31st day of March, 1919, and for the period 4th day of August, 1914, to 31st day of March, 1919, together with Copy of the Correspondence with the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon."—[Mr. Baldwin.]

IMPRISONMENT OF A MEMBER.

Mr. SPEAKER informed the House that he had received the following letter relating to the arrest and imprisonment of a Member:

Headquarters,

Dublin District.

No. 483/2/84A.

The Right Honourable The SPEAKER,

House of Commons,

London, S.W.1.

SIR,

I have the honour to report that, on the 3rd day of March, 1920, Mr. T. Hunter, M.P. for North-East Cork, was arrested under a direction issued by me as Competent Military Authority, under the Defence of the Realm Regulations, and was committed to His Majesty's Prison, Mountjoy.

I have the honour to be.

Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

G. F. BOYD,

Major-General,

Competent Military Authority.

Lower Castle Yard,

Dublin.

9th March, 1920.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

STANDING COMMITTEE B.

Sir SAMUEL ROBERTS reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee B: Colonel Wedgwood; and had appointed in substitution; Mr. Spencer.

Report to lie upon the Table.

Orders of the Day — BLIND (EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT AND MAINTENANCE) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr. TILLETT: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
I desire to draw attention to the memorandum. The object of the Bill is
to provide for the technical education of the blind by the establishment and equipment of technical schools where necessary, or by contributions to existing schools and institutions for the employment of the blind by the establishment and equipment of workshops where necessary; or by contributions to existing institutions providing work for the blind; for grants in respect of augmentation of wages earned by persons so employed; for the provision of the expenses of blind persons at institutions or hostels while under technical instruction; for the employment and maintenance of blind persons away from workshops, and for the maintenance of blind persons incapacitated from earning their livelihood.
That comprehensive memorandum indicates what we desire. We do not wish to go beyond that, nor do we lessen in our desire to accept any compromise less than that. I owe an explanation or an apology to the House inasmuch as the Bill is backed purely from a Labour standpoint. I desire to assure the House that I want the help of every Member of every party and section. It would be presumption and the most insolent form of arrogance if the Labour party assumed that it was the only defender of the blind. God has not limited this affliction to our class. Whether He had done so or not it would be the duty of all classes to see to it that the blind were not handicapped by a want of interest. I hope that there will be no debauch of maudlin sentiment, but I feel sure that every Member of the House feels profoundly in the depths of his heart a great pity and charity for those who are afflicted by the disease or defect of blindness. I am going to take them into my confidence. I feel perplexed because I know everyone will be in sympathy. In my own experience of life, where we have had universal sympathy we have had the least support. I do not want, when we meet the Treasury, as we must meet the Treasury, to feel that my heart is sinking, nor do I want the Treasury to be the dead end of our last hope. I want them to appreciate that
the realm of the blind is the kingdom of poverty. So at once I throw myself frankly on the goodwill of the House. If there should be and Members here who think that we should have consulted them and placed their names on the back of the Bill, please do not blame the Labour party but blame me. I take my full share of responsibility for that. Because I do that, I ask this House to consider the facts as they are. There are some 30,000, dependent blind persons. Out of this total of 30,000 there are 10,000 supported by Poor Law agency, there are 7,000 more or less industrially employed, and 2,000 directly industrially employed. We must accept the fact that their normal efficiency would be anything between 35 and 50 per cent. of the efficiency of the normal person, and that their efficiency depends not only on their own aptitude but also upon any technical instruction they receive. This Bill is not a Bill to pauperise; it is a Bill to give efficiency, to provide machinery, to give technical instruction and to give a great hope to the blind.
God's greatest gift is eyesight, and those of us denied that great privilege live in darkness everlasting. We cannot create eyesight like the Nazarene, but we can, at least, do something to inspire the blind in their work, and of all the great blessings we can offer to them it is to give them occupation. I have often thought if Milton had not written his great classic poem he would have lived in a purgatory of regret. We have gained because of the expression of his power assisted by his daughters. He was able to employ his mind and to give to us that poem which will be a classic as long as the English language lives. I want to give to the blind who cannot reach that level at least the very best chance possible. I do not claim for the Bill that it will be the inauguration of a new era, but it will be the creation of a better understanding of what blindness means generally and to the individual. It will give us a chance of appreciating that 40 per cent. of blindness occurs after the age of thirty-five. If the report on a C 2 nation had been analysed in minute particulars, the nation would realise that semi-blindness or impaired sight constitutes a very grave danger to the, community, and that in the period of the War defective eyesight was one of the most prominent among the defects. If this measure only gives us a scientific and natural sense of the
meaning of blindness or semi-blindness, then it will not have failed in placing on the Statute Book a constructive capacity for organisation which will deal with the preventive, curative, and remedial side. I ask the House to regard this measure not as imposing financial obligations, but as a humane measure that may mean to us much more than pounds, shillings and pence can express. In the report of the Commission on Venereal Diseases we have disclosed a very tragic and serious condition of things. Maternal gonorrhea, if not promptly treated, causes as much as 25 per cent. of blindness. That is an indictment of the community itself. I am not here to indulge in any criticism that will contain any sort of cynicism. I want to thank the Government for what it has done, and to thank the Minister of Health and pay my personal tribute to his work. As to the voluntary institutions, St. Dunstan's and the old established bodies, God only knows what would have happened if there had not been heart and soul among the people to undertake this work, but even with that we have done very little for the blind. We owe our thanks to those people who have done their share. I desire to relieve the blind from the necessity of depending upon the voluntary associations and the charity of the generous. Probably the generous of our own nation have been exploited beyond those of any other nation. I would not ask for State assistance if I felt we could do without it, and I think that we have not been grateful enough to those who have rendered splendid service when the State has forgotten its duty. The State is alive to its finger tips to the four corners of the earth should danger come, but I do not want the House to pass by with the mere belief that 30,000 necessitous persons represent the whole case as to defective sight. If a thorough investigation were made, and if school clinics were appreciated, as I believe they will be appreciated better in the future, it will not be a case of 30,000 but of thousands or even millions affected more or less by defective eyesight. You must begin with the mother. How many poor little bairns have suffered a lifetime of darkness and torture through the incompetence and neglect or ignorance of a nurse or mother. Compulsory registration is a necessity not merely to save the State, but to save the women, for I know of no greater purgatory than that of the mother who croons over a blind bairn
when she herself has been responsible for that child.
If only to relieve matters and to go back to what the defects of sight mean, then this measure will be of great benefit to us all. The Bill in itself does not eliminate any single voluntary institution, it does not cut across any form of voluntary aid, it does not impinge upon any vested institution. No voluntary agency has a right to adopt a dog in the manger policy towards this Bill. Ever since the country itself has assumed a fair share of responsibility, our voluntary associations have gone ahead in their usefulness. It docs allow the State itself, under the Health Ministry, to formulate and to create machinery, it does allow any municipal authority either directly or in co-operation with other municipal authorities to act as a responsible body. The language of the Bill is couched in the simplest possible terms, and it is not technical to any degree or legal in its formula in any manner, but it does give this protection to the blind and protection to the State itself. It asks of those who accept the assistance of the State the controlling supervisory right of a National Advisory Committee. The voluntary institutions cannot have their cake and eat it. If they accept State assistance, and I am sure they will, they will be assisted by the State, and the State department, I feel positive, will render not merely a magnificant service, but will contribute to prevent a repetition of the examples which were expressed during the war. I do not think any Member of this House will say I am a little Britisher. I believe in my own country to the very depths of my soul as being the best country on God's earth, but in this war our Colonial troops and the American troops showed a direct expression of the special benefit of the care of the young in the matter of sight and the general senses. It shocked me to think that by comparison we were very far behind our own Colonial troops and the American troops.
I am not thinking only of war. Damn war, and all those who make it. But I am thinking of health, and life, and efficiency, and I do not want a period of war to be the only period when we sit up and take notice. Physical deterioration should be a thing of grave concern to all of us at any period. It is not merely to the benefit of the individual that he or she may be healthy, it is of benefit
to the whole country, and, after all, healthy brains are most healthy in healthy bodies. I am not pleading for pity at all. I do not wish any Member of this House to express the slightest quiver of sympathy unless he or she will be helping us in this measure. I want the technical instruction schools to be a feature of our administration of the blind institutions. I want us to see clinically. I want the doctor to come to our help, and I want the doctor even to be asked how much mal-nutrition is responsible for bad sight or the weakening of either of the senses. I want that sort of institution set up that can be scientific, and while we may be proud of the stamina of our countrymen in fighting, I believe the greatest test will be applied in the near future of what will be our stamina in the industrial, international fights of the world for not merely supremacy, but for existence. We are going to build up a nation of healthy human beings.
I do not want to occupy too much of the attention of this House, but I do want us to realise that glorious gift of sight. The eye is the greatest optical instrument ever invented, invented by a great Creator, invented by the power of the universe, the eye—for there was light long before sight—the eye's retina, that may take in the glorious expanse of son, of mountain, or of sky, may look closely into the molecule or the cell, may direct itself to the point of a pin, may be the skilled craftsman, may be the skilled lace-maker, may be the woman or the man at the machine, may be those manipulating a great microscope or a great telescope, whatever the colours of earth and sky and sea may be, the great power of sight is a blessing. We cannot imagine the loss of the power of sight when one remembers a sunrise or a sunset. One cannot live without misgivings if one had to lose the vision of a great sky in cloud or storm or sunshine, and all the glorious colours. One cannot think without great doubt and without great sorrow that one should miss their way to the great light of day, with the stars, with the sun, with the moon, withlights and shades of a sun on a harvest field, with all that comes to our glorious vision with the sight God created. That is one great side of the question that we must consider. When one considers that that is denied to our brethren and our sisters, that they must work for over in
the prison of eternal night, that they must go on for ever without seeing as we see, let us use our good eyes for them, let us stretch out our arms in their darkness and support them, let us try to be brothers and sisters to them. What God and nature and accident and defect have denied them, let us try and make it up in our human sympathy, in our practical human sympathy.
I am perplexed and worried that there may be too much maudlin sentiment. I want real sympathy, that the blind of our community shall be honoured by it, that the State will come to our assistance, and that a great humanity will fill the souls of those responsible in great State Departments, that if the blind may not see with their eyes we shall put eyes into their finger ends. If they may not see with their eyes, let us give to their other organs a greater sense, and, realising that great miracle of the sense of sight, try to make up for the great loss, for, however cynical a man's nature may be, of all the curses that could come to him, his great fear would be blindness May that fear be an appalling sense of responsibility. In uttering these words I leave to the practical good will of the House this Rill, hoping that it may receive not merely their consideration, but their support, so that we may start an era of great good.

Mr. STEPHEN WALSH: I beg to second the Motion.
I am sure, after the moving and eloquent appeal of my Friend the hon. Member for North Salford (Mr. Tillett). little remains to be said from these benches. Most Members, I think, will be acquainted with the actual contents of the measure. The Bill is identical in every particular, save the commencing date, with that introduced by myself, under the Ten Minutes' Rule, last Session, and to which this House gave an unopposed First Reading. The objects, as my hon. Friend has explained, are very plainly set out. They are objects with which, I think, every Member of this House and every citizen outside this House, must be in agreement. That the blind, in so far as they can receive technical education, ought to be given the opportunity, is, I think, a truism; that in so far as they may benefit by employment, the opportunity should be given for such employment, I think may be taken for granted; that in those cases where they are incapable of employment, either by age or by
other physical defects, that they need maintenance is, of course, common to us all. We all have to be maintained, and if we can maintain thorn in a state that preserves their self-respect, it certainly is the better thing to do so. I was glad to hear my hon. Friend press the point home that this Bill did not in any way traverse the useful work of those many admirable institutions which have for a long time been catering for the education, employment and maintenance of the blind. I know myself many excellent institutions, officered by men and women who have given long years of the most devoted service, and whose energy, perseverance, organising capacity, and, indeed, self-sacrince, are beyond all praise. In those cases, not only would such institutions and such devoted people be helped in their work, but their activities, I think, would be stimulated, and they themselves would be greatly encouraged to persevere in that kind of work.
There are other institutions which really do not reach the high standard of those to which I have just alluded. In many cases the motives are no less admirable, but the fortunes have not been so favourable. They have not been able to make so successful an appeal to the charitable public. They have in many cases poorer districts and greater numbers to deal with. The charity of the public has not been so pronounced. The needs of their clients have been more insistent. Often enough they try to maintain a good heart and a stiff upper lip when all the circumstances are against them. They are very seldom cheered by any real hope in the present, and there is no definite hope for their future. Those cases, indeed, where the motives are excellent, where the people themselves are fully competent to guide and to administer, would be helped by a Bill such as this. But there are other organisations which have not the slightest right to be included in the category of the two to which I have referred—organisations which masquerade in the guise of charity, exploiting the sympathies of the public and exploiting the necessities of the blind at the same time. Those organisations, under the operation of this Bill, would be ruthlessly swept away. But, noble as is the work of many of these institutions, the labours and the self-sacrifice of the individuals, they really do not touch the root principle which we
are endeavouring to establish in this Bill, namely, the civic responsibility of all the people to the helpless blind. We have long passed the stage of the old economists who held that it was "Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost." We have seen in a very real sense that there is no individual, however humble, in the community but who, if left unattended and unguarded, reacts injuriously upon the fortunes of the whole community, and to-day there is, I am sure, a deeper and a nobler sense of civic responsibility than ever before.
Now I know perfectly well the admirable work which is being done at the Ministry of Health. I was very glad indeed to hear my hon. Friend's speech in terms of real appreciation of the work of that Ministry. I think this last half-dozen years there never was a Department that has deserved so well of the State, whether it be child welfare, maternity, clinics, a thousand and one things in which, day by day, and week by week, for years, that Department has shown a high and an increasing sense of responsibility for the public well-being. I am quite sure that in no Department were words of appreciation better earned than in the Department to which my hon. Friend alluded. I do most earnestly hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not take this Bill as in any sense reflecting upon the magnificent work that his Department is doing and is capable of doing. Its proposals do not in any way clash with the work of the Ministry of Health, or interfere with or warp the functions they have been so constantly exercising. I am quite conscious that at the Ministry of Health there is a very fine Advisory Committee representing the blind in every capacity—men of remarkable attainments and with a very fine record upon that Committee. I think it may be said that there are very few representative Committees which so truly stand for the whole of the blind as does that Committee at the Ministry of Health. It has done an exceedingly good work for the last couple of years. Its work is quite consistent with the objects of this Bill.
We are very conscious, indeed, that all the Parties in this House and all people outside should recognise that this is a matter in which the responsibility lies on the whole community. It is not in any sense a matter of party controversy.
There is not the slightest ground for any man on these Benches to say that this is a matter which, if gained, has been gained by the Labour party. Not a bit of it! That would be too mean a conception altogether for any one of us to entertain. We are endeavouring to range the sympathies and activities of all the parties in this House, and people outside, on behalf of this great and overwhelming claim of the blind. We urge that the State should be responsible for them. We plead on behalf of those who are the victims of this most terrible affliction, that to some of us seems the most terrible that can befall humanity. We urge that in their case we should train them for employment, and if they cannot obtain employment it is necessary—and where they are hopelessly incapable—that we shall see that they are in receipt of a wage or some pension which enables them to maintain themselves under conditions of self-respect. These really are the underlying principles of the Bill. I believe they commend themselves to every man in this House.

Mr. SUGDEN: I rise with the very greatest possible pleasure as a humble Member of a certain political section in this House to support the very modest measure which has been introduced from the Labour Benches. In doing so I wish, with the hon. Members who have spoken, to express appreciation of what the institutions of the country on behalf of the blind have done in the past, and also to recognise what the Minister of Health and his Department have done for these people, deprived of that sense which some of us consider is the most important with which we are endowed. In joining in that meed of praise to both institutions and Ministers, I feel it is essential, in supporting this Bill, that there should be pointed out to the House why it has become so vitally necessary to have such a Bill, where the weakness of the administration of the Ministry of Health lies in respect of these afflicted people, and also to point out and exhibit the weakness of the institutions in the country; afterwards to show the responsibilities of the State and the civic authorities for every section and strata of these afflicted people. I should like hon. Members to understand that in presenting this measure we do not forget the vital consideration of the children who are not included in the Bill. If it be, as we hope it
will be, that this House gives a Second Beading, and, subsequently, if it is at all possible, with the assistance of the Government, to have amendments introduced by them, or that we shall be given the chance of enlarging the scope of the Bill, we shall be very pleased so to do. I am also thinking in this connection of the necessitous blind children as well also of the blind infants under one year of age. One must first consider the extent of the problem. There are 33,965 blind people in the United Kingdom. Of these 26,000 are adults. Of that number, with all that the Institutions and Societies have done over many years in this country in the way of employment and helpful financial assistance—some of the latter coming from the Ministry of Health—not more than 2,500 of these blind persons are employed in workshops, and thus able to do something towards their own maintenance. There is no class of the community whose members are so keen, or so desirous of being able to fend for themselves as blind people. There is no section of the community so keen as the blind, in their sense of the national honour or of their own individual honour, and of being able to support themselves with that degree of comfort which every citizen of this great Empire has a right to demand.
When we consider the number of blind persons who are able to earn their own livelihood and take a practical part in our industrial and social life we find it is a small proportion, and I say that whatever intentions, whatever the splendid esprit de carps at the Ministry of Health, and in the Institutions, the result is not such as to warrant that these unfortunate people should be left without further means of help.
I should like to refer to the report of the Advisory Committee on the welfare of the Blind which was set up by the Minister of Health. I desire to call the attention of hon. Members to certain of its recommendations, then very shortly to refer to those recommendations and grants-in-aid with the suggestions that have come from the Ministry of Health; showing how although these have been accepted; still show the weaknesses both of the Ministry and of Institutions, and then point out how the Bill which has been introduced will do away with many of the weaknesses of our present system. Let me be perfectly candid. Some of us who
are keenly interested in the welfare of the country feel that it will be essential in grand committee to introduce numerous amendments to makes quite sure of the efficiency required, and the changing of the retrogressive policy pursued by some civic authorities in regard to their responsibilities for the blind.
First of all I want to show what some of the recommendations of the Committee were. In respect to co-operation in the workshops, this is what the Committee says, and be it remembered that it was a Committee of the best minds that this House appointed to deal with this question;—
We are aware that there is great room for closer co-operation between workshops for the blind, and that a number of the workshops where the methods of work are wasteful and the conditions indifferent could only benefit by close co-operation between their Committee and the Committees of the more efficient workshops.
And farther on they say:
A great deal remains to be done along these lines and along the lines of co-operative buying of raw materials and selling the finished product, of the proper classification of the articles to be made at our workshops in relation to local requirements, and of the standardisation of these articles, but competent inspection is a necessary preliminary to these things.
Then they go on to make certain suggestions with regard to the registration of institutions, societies and agencies. They make suggestions in respect of the registration of the individual blind, and as to the augmentation of wages, and the continuity of employment, which, as hon. Members will remember, are vital necessities. These institutions have all the support which the right hon. Gentleman, the Minister of Health, has given—and I may say that the Ministry of Health has done more for the blind during the time it has been in existence than was done in any twenty years by any previous Governments, yet with all that practical sympathy—the kind of sympathy which the hon Member who introduced the Bill pleaded for-the only result has been that about 2,500 blind people have been provided with the means of earning their livelihood in workshops. If that is to be remedied, something more must be done than has already been accomplished. This very modest Bill, now presented for Second Reading, will do much to clear away existing absurdities and will give greater responsibility to local men and to the
civic authorities, and if it be properly moulded and given sufficient statutory safeguards it will promote a high spirit of civic responsibility which can be used to the best benefit of the community. This Report also dealt with the question of the workshops accountancy, and it is really appalling when one finds the awfully insolvent condition of many of these institutions, due, largely, to the improper application of the funds which they have been given. And when I say improper use and application of monies I do not mean anything dishonourable, but rather that absence of high, efficient, technical and practical knowledge of how to use money in the special work of culture, mental, industrial, social and moral of the afflicted blind. Take the case of education, both technical and secondary. Hon. Members will be surprised to know that in this country there is only one school to give secondary education to boys who are blind. In respect of the girls there is no school whatever. While with the active co-operation of the Minister of Education in collaboration with the Minister of Health much good has been done in regard to education in these matters, yet there is not sufficient accommodation for technical instruction, which, after all, is practically the bread and butter type of education that will enable these men to carry themselves with the dignity and responsibility which is the right of every working Englishman. After all, most of the men affected belong to the poorer lower classes, and yet for them nothing practical has really been done to enable them to have an opportunity of earning their livelihood.
What has been done? That is a proper question to be addressed to the Minister of Health. Some of the grants are as follows: £20 per head is granted to workshops which employ these blind people, and £20 per head is also granted to homes where these people are of home employment schemes. There is, further, some grant towards the initial expenditure which may be essential and necessary to make the homework practical and efficient; yet we find the percentage of employment is very small. I therefore must press the argument that the result of our efforts in the past has not been such as we have a right to expect and desire. I want to bring to the notice of hon. Members in respect of the educational section of the question that there
is no civilised country in the world which has such a poverty of method for teaching the blind as has this country. We have not specialised in the production of expert blind teachers of the blind. In the United States of America they have made special efforts to give specialised treatment for these people in respect to education, greater effort, indeed, than for any other section of the community in America. But where are we in this country' We have done something in regard to the higher walks of life, in university education, but this section of education in respect to the blind has been distinctly neglected. There are no sufficient teachers to teach the blind, and something more must be done. This small Bill presents an opportunity whereby it may be possible to introduce the type of training which I have suggested, so that there shall be collaboration and more efficient cooperation between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education, with the result that that section, which counts so much in industrial life, may have its opportunity.
It has been suggested that the work of some of the institutions may somehow be minimised if the course we propose is accepted. In my opinion there is not the slightest danger of this obtaining. I may go further and say that if all the endowments which have been given from time to time to these societies could be pooled in one central fund and administered with expert and scientific knowledge of the blind needs and with businesslike acumen and sound practical common-sense, in my opinion there would be sufficient money in these funds to do the whole of the work which it is proposed to undertake under this Bill. The word "charity" stinks in the nostrils of blind people, and I say that in full confidence having had many opportunities of meeting them. What they want is an opportunity to make themselves efficient and earn their own livelihood, and if they can only have that, they desire nothing in the nature of charity. If we can persuade and guide the minds of the leaders of these great institutions to give proper vocational training, under proper amalgamation, I suggest that little or nothing will be required from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We all know that when the Minister of Health
set up this subcommittee to consider this question it made definite recommendations which would have effected what we are trying to do under this Bill; but when the Committee's report was presented the Treasury with certain financial suggestions the Treasury turned it down with Very little sympathy. I believe this Bill will receive support from every quarter of the House, and if we can only present such a case as I believe we can to the leaders and guiders of these great institutions, they will be prepared to act on the lines we suggest, namely, to nationalise and pool their resources. Many of us are not willing to accept nationalisation in regard to a lot of things, but I believe that in this matter of the blind we are prepared to agree to nationalisation, and if we only put forward a case which will ensure the efficiency we require I hope the institutions will fall into line and permit their funds and endowments to be put into the hands of the Minister of Health and of the Minister of Education with a view to a satisfactory solution of the problem we have before us. They, of course, still retaining representation on the national committee advising and watching the affairs of the blind population. The Minister of Health made recommendations with regard to the subsidy, but we ask hon. Members to support us in pressing for a sufficient minimum wage for this labour. Otherwise Parliament will be traducing and prostituting all sections of these people. Pre-natal blindness and blindness at birth are not included in the scope of the Bill, but we are looking to the Minister of Health, when the measure gets into Committee upstairs, to give opportunities and facilities for us to deal with this matter. In conclusion, I ask that opportunity shall be given to all sections of these poor afflicted people to take their part not only in the industrial life of our country, but also in the professions, medical and legal. The electrical trade alone in its expanding future offer the possibility of utilising the whole of the employable blind of the country. This Bill, with such dressing and alteration as it may require, gives a splendid opportunity of dealing with this grave and deep problem, the problem of the men and women who live in the perpetual night, and who feel in sense and thought rather than physically the beauties and glories of our country and of our race.

Captain CRAIG: I rise to support the Second Reading of this Bill. My sympathies, like those of every Member of the House, go out to the blind, whether they live in England, Scotland, or any other part of the country. I naturally turn, first of all, to the blind in my own country, who, I would point out, are in a very much less satisfactory position than those in any other part of the United Kingdom. I desire to testify my gratitude to the hon. Member who introduced this Bill (Mr. Tillott) for his reception of me when I approached him some time ago to have provisions inserted in the Bill for dealing with the elementary and secondary training of children in Ireland. The House will note that the Bill deals entirely with technical training. Up to the present there has boon no legislation conferring upon the blind in Ireland the blessings that have been conferred upon the blind of England and Scotland in the matter of elementary and secondary education. Those hon. Members who have taken an interest in the matter will know that there was legislation for the elementary and secondary education of the blind in England and Scotland as long ago as 1890 and 1893. Heaven only knows why Ireland was not dealt with in the same way at that tine. Probably the Members of Parliament of those days who asked for legislation for the Irish blind were told that they Were going to have a Home Rule Bill very soon and that they would be able to Settle the matter for themselves. That may be the answer that I shall receive to day when I ask for the same thing. It is a matter, however, which does not brook delay, and an opportunity of remedying it arises on this Bill. I ask the House to do their duty by the Irish blind, as they propose to do by the blind in other parts of the United Kingdom.
Every Member who has preceded me has complimented the Minister of Health upon what he has done for the blind. I am not going to waste time in complimenting anybody, because I feel, so far from anybody deserving compliments, that we all equally deserve blame. We should regret rather than be proud of the fact that it was only in 1890 and 1803 that Parliament dealt with this matter, and that we should be dealing with this phase of the subject at this late date. It is a matter for which we cannot claim any great credit. It ought to have been done
long ago. I take my full share of the blame, because I admit that I paid no particular attention to he matter until the question of the blind was brought forcibly before me more or less by accident a few months ago. When I was brought up against the blind, I realised at once that it was a matter that should have been attended to a great many years ago, and I am sure that is the position of many other Members. I do not wish to blame anyone in particular. We are all to blame in the matter The blind in Ireland are in every way worse off than the blind in England and in Scotland. There are more of them in proportion to population. In England there is one in 1,400, in Scotland one in 1,300, and in Ireland, I regret to say, nearly one in 1,000. From that point of view, the duty of the public towards the blind is more imperative in Ireland than in the other countries. With the exception of one successful institution in Belfast, and two smaller ones in Dublin, institutions for the blind are non-existent in Ireland The exact number is not known, but probably there are 4,500 blind in Ireland Only 250 are able to obtain employment, over 700 of them are paupers, and a large number of the residue are engaged in the degrading occupation of begging, a reproach which the blind themselves feel very keenly.
This Bill proposes to give facilities for technical education for the blind in Ireland, but it is more or less like asking a man to do higher mathematics without having taught him the rudiments of arithmetic, because the Irish blind have not had any opportunity of receiving elementary and secondary education. The hon. Member opposite was good enough to consent readily and with pleasure to the insertion in this Bill of provisions bringing the position of the Irish blind, with regard to elementary and secondary education, up to the same level as that which obtains in England and Scotland. Since then, I understand that the experts to whom he submittted the proposal have expressed a fear that the introduction of matters dealing with elementary and secondary education in a Bill, which, according to the title, is to deal only with technical education, might cause it to be out of order atogether, and, therefore, the provisions which I had proposed to introduce are not in the Bill. My object is to obtain the sympathy of the House for the introduction by me subsequently
of provisions which will bring the Irish blind up to the same level as the English and Scottish blind with regard to elementary and secondary education, first, because it is a good object in itself, and, secondly, because it will prepare them and make them ready to appreciate and profit by the provisions of the Bill dealing with technical education. This I shall endeavour to do when the Bill arrives, as I hope it will, at the Committee stage. I ask the sympathy of the House for those in Ireland who are blind, and the same help for them as for those who are blind on this side of the water. I particularly ask this because I believe that there has been an oversight on the part of some person or somebody, a derelection of duty, because there has been such a long time before the blind have received the attention which is due to them. It has been fully twenty years since action was taken, and the Irish blind have been left out and now occupy an inferior position to the blind in this country. I have great pleasure in supporting the Bill.

Mr. G. THORNE: ; I desire very warmly to congratulate the hen. Gentleman who moved the Second Heading of this Bill. He has been doubly fortunate—fortunate in the Ballot and then in obtaining the opportunity to introduce the Bill this afternoon. I also desire to express appreciation of the words which came from the Seconder of the Motion to the effect that although this Bill emanates from the Labour party it is recognised that Members on all sides of the House desire to take their part in promoting so excellent an object. This is one of the oases that we sometimes find in the domain of political controversy that make political life worth living. We are dealing with the realities of life in a Bill like this, just as earlier in the Session we faced the problem of the children, one of the most vital questions that we could possibly deal with. Now we are facing a question of those who are quite helpless, and we equally desire to give the proposals the most earnest support. We have recognised through His Majesty the King and throughout the country the heroism of those men who have lost their sight in fighting for their country. I think that some of the men and women who have in other ways lost their sight and are battling against the
terrible disaster of blindness are perhaps equally worthy of recognition from the King and the nation. I should like to see the Victoria Cross awarded to some of those who have so proudly fought against this hard fate. I recognise, and otherwise I should not support the Bill, that the Bill does not in the slightest degree attempt to do anything in the nature of charity. It is to help the helpless till they become helpful, and so far as I have been able to judge, the idea which they resent more than all else is anything in the nature of charity. They want the opportunity to become helpful and self-respecting members of society. Because I do not regard this Bill as tending in that direction I desire to give to its general application my hearty support.
We are not concerned with the details. We shall hear of that from the Minister of Health (Dr. Addison) who I hope will speak just now. I understand that this Bill in its essence is a legislative recognition, on the part of the nation and the local authorities of our responsibility towards the blind, and that the object is to give them an opportunity of living their own lives as they desire to live them, as helpful members of society. I think that in course of time, instead of this Bill being a means whereby a burden will be placed upon the nation it will, on the contrary, in the long run reduce our expenditure by making those who were dependent upon charity, as we call it, self-supporting members of society. Because I recognise this as the object in view, so admirably indicated by the Mover, and because the terms and proposals of the Bill are so good, I desire, subject to necessary amendments in Committee, to give it my most hearty support.

Sir F. BANBURY: Everybody in the House feels sympathy with the blind, but I hope hon. Members will not allow themselves to be led away by sentiment and sympathy from the consideration of doing something which will impose a large burden upon the local authorities and the taxpayers. If the clauses of the Bill are really what has been described, they will carry out its purposes either in the form of charity or of a dole. I have taken opportunities during the last few months of pointing out that, however good an object may be, we cannot afford at the present moment to spend money.
This is the worst moment in which to bring forward a Bill like this, almost every line of which means a further expenditure of public money. We cannot do that until we manage to make both ends meet. What does this Bill propose to do I do not know whether every Member has read it. It reminds me of the Bill which we considered about a fortnight ago, the objct of which was dscribed as the extending of the franchise for women. Everyone, or at any rate the majority, of the Members of the House, thought the object of the Bill was simply to reduce the ago of qualification from 30 to 21. It was nothing of the sort. It has all sorts of other objects which were not found out until the Bill had passed its Second Heading. This Bill does exactly the same. I listened to the hon. Member who spoke a few minutes ago and who made a most eloquent statement about the necessity of paying everybody the minimum rate of wages. He said the labourer should receive the minimum rate of wages so that labour should not be injured. I cannot make out what that had to do with the technical training of the blind. This is not merely a Bill to deal with the blind; it is a Bill to maintain everybody who chooses to make out to the local authority that he cannot see quite as well as he should like to do. I am obliged to wear glasses, I may go to the local authority and ask to be paid the minimum rate of wages at the expense of the ratepayer and taxpayer. If the House will look at the Bill, Sub-section (4), Clause 12, it will be seen that that is quite possible.

Mr. McGUFFIN: The Bill says nothing about partial blindness. It deals with blindness.

Sir F. BANBURY: That is exactly what I was saying. Everybody is so desirous of doing good to all sorts of people that they come down here with misleading proposals, and without knowing exactly what it is that is being proposed. If you will look at Clause 13 you will see that it says:—
The expression 'Local Authority' means the Council of any County or County Borough. The expression 'blind' means too blind, in the opinion of the Local Authority, to perform work for which eyesight is ordinarily required.
That may mean anything, and a woman may go to the Local Authority and say: "I am too blind to thread a needle, my
sight is not sufficient, and I cannot continue dressmaking. I am too blind to do my work, and therefore I demand to betaken over and maintained at the cost of the State." It is only necessary to do that. There is no provision for a certificate from a doctor, and it does not even say that there is to be any kind of appeal. There is no appeal on behalf of the ratepayer. If the Local Authority says that John Jones is, in its opinion, a blind person, and requires help from the ratepayers, under this Bill, nobody can come and say: "In my opinion John Jones is all right"; and there is no way in which the ratepayer can have any appeal. That person is too blind to do the work which he ordinarily would like to do, and I as a ratepayer have to keep him. I have no appeal. If the local authorty says he is not sufficiently blind to be maintained in this way tinder the Bill he can appeal. To whom can he appeal I Not to the Minister of Health, who may have or ought to have some expert knowledge upon the matter, but to a person appointed by the Board of Education. What on earth does the Board of Education know about whether a man or woman is blind? The Board of Education, as far as I have ever had the misfortune to have anything to do with it, are very spendthrift people, only too glad to spend money if they get an opportunity. It is true there is also "a Secretary of State." "A Secretary of State" is rather wide. I do not think the Minister of Health is a Secretary of State. I think "Secretary of State" means the Secretary of State for War. What docs he know about it? The First Lord of the Admiralty? I do not know that he knows much about whether a person is blind or not. The Secretary of State for India? I do not think he knows much about it. The people who have been chosen are people who have no knowledge whatever upon this special subject Whenever a Bill of this sort is brought in, we are told it is not going to cost very much. When the Education Bill was brought in the Liberal authorities of that day assured us that the rate would never be more than 3d. in the I remember when Old Ago Pensions were brought in we were assured by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Asquith) that they would not cost more than £6,000,000. Now they cost something like £20,000,000, The same thing always goes on. Do not
let us be misled by the idea that this is going to be a cheap thing. It is going to be very expensive, and it is going to lead to all the evils and drawbacks which result from indiscriminate outdoor relief, and this is nothing more nor less than indiscriminate outdoor relief.
The Bill, of course, is extremely badly drafted, and parts of it are quite unintelligible. Clause 3, for instance, imposes an obligation on local authorities to establish or acquire, equip and maintain within its area workshops to provide employment for the blind. It goes on:
No expense shall be incurred or contribution granted under this section by any local authority until the approval of a Secretary of State has been obtained to the amount of such expense or contribution and to the terms, if any, on which the expense is incurred or the contribution granted.
What is the local authority to do? The first part says, "You shall establish workshops." Then they find, under Clause (3), that they cannot incur any expense without the sanction of a Secretary of State. If the Secretary of State for War sanctioned it I suppose it could be done. I have read some funny Bills in this House, especially of late years, and especially from that side of the House, but this is the most extraordinary Bill I have ever read. The only good feature I see in it is that it will take a very long time in Committee. I earnestly hope that the House will not be led away by the idea that this is a Bill for the education, employment and maintenance of the blind. It is nothing of the sort. Under it practically almost anybody might be educated, employed and maintained at someone else's expense. I hope, therefore, the House will show a little wisdom and will also support that economy which we are always talking about but never acting upon.

Mr. DEVLIN: I congratulate the promoters of this Bill upon the very fortunate circumstance that it has secured the hostility of the right hon. Baronet. I do not think advocacy, however eloquent, of any proposal submitted to this House is so irresistible in its ultimate results as a speech in opposition to the proposal by the right hon. Baronet? have been in the House for over 20 years and I have never, through all the fortunes and vissicitudes of Parliamentary activities, heard the right hon. Baronet plead for a great
human cause or support any of those great measures which tend to the advancement of the people.

Sir F. BANBURY: I have never seen any.

Mr. DEVLIN: That is a fine observation from one who has his sight on a Bill to deal with the question of the blind. There has been just one gleam of humanity in his Parliamentary life, and that was when he carried on a propaganda against the vivisection of dogs. I remember how his heart and his soul flowed with human feeling and pity and mercy for dogs. I do not object to sympathy with dogs. I think it is a fine trait in human character and a very worthy cause to support. But I cannot understand the mentality of the right hon. Baronet, who might be my Parliamentary grandfather. I believe he has been here for about forty years. His voice has been raised in defence of dogs, and the only time it has been raised in other causes has been to oppose all measures that tend to sweeten life and make the condition of the people better than it was before.

Sir F. BANBURY: I raised my voice in opposition to the Home Rule Bill, which was done in kindness to Ireland.

Mr. DEVLIN: I am delighted, because next to the irresistable Irish eloquence which we suppose will one day win this cause, we trust the right hon. Baronet will live to oppose us long enough to get our measure carried. The greatest misery that can befall a member of the human family is the loss of sight. I do not say that sight brings wisdom, because the right hon. Baronet has good sight, but he does not see very far. Physical blindness is a personal affliction; mental blind ness is a curse to humanity. One causes great personal sorrow, and the other brings about universal trouble. Therefore, I think the right hon. Gentleman, though the affliction is different, ought to have that sympathy by which one touch of nature makes the whole world kin. He has stated that he is entirely opposed to this lavish expenditure; but he has not told the House what amount of money is going to be spent if this Bill comes into operation. I prefer the opinions of those hon. Members on the Labour benches, and some Conservative gentlemen of public spirit who are neither physically blind nor mentally blind. There are some
Conservatives like that. I was surprised when I heard that these proposals do not mean any burden to the State; but that does not commend the Bill to me. If ever there was any problem which should be grappled with, whether it costs money to the State or not, it most undoubtedly is the problem of the blind. When I go through the streets of Belfast and see a man, in the fullness of his health and vigour, standing with closed eyes and bearing a label on his breast "Pity me, I am blind," I do not pity him, but I pity myself. I pity the community that lacks the spirit of practical sympathy and subjects honest, decent citizens suffering from this providential infliction to the degradation of standing at the street corner and appealing for pity. If there is to be pity, let the pity be for Members of Parliament, for members of municipal councils, and for men and women in positions of responsibility who make such things possible in the midst of a Christian community. The right hon. Gentleman is opposed to this scheme, but if you wanted Imperial expansion, if you wanted to increase military power, if you wanted war with Russia, if you wanted the Army mobilised for further conflict with Germany, he would stand with a Union Jack in his hand and would not in the least object to the expenditure of public money upon undertakings of that character.

Sir F. BANBURY: It was a pity we did not spend a little more money on the Army before the German War.

Mr. DEVLIN: My right hon. Friend, being a sound economist, may have opposed it when it was necessary. It is only when the money is necessary that the right hon. Gentleman opposes it. For the right hon. Gentleman to come here and denounce expenditure on education, upon the proper training of the people, upon the creation of public efficiency, upon the creation of a most perfect economic and industrial machine, and above all, in giving a chance to the most afflicted class and the most defenceless class in the world, is a thing I cannot understand from the right, hon. Gentleman who has always been overflowing with sympathy for dogs. I did not intend to do more than rise to say that I associate myself, as an Irish representative, with this Bill. There are 5,000 blind in Ireland, and of these 5,000 only 250 are employed. Upwards of 700 of
these blind people are in Irish workhouses. I was asked the other day by a blind inmate of a workhouse to go and see him. He declared that he remembered me when I was a boy, and that he had followed with some interest my career, and was anxious that I would go and speak to him. I went, and I thought I should see a tottering old man, but I found a man 39 years of age, and he had been in that place over 16 years. I thought it was a most extraordinary circumstance to find this highly intelligent man, in the fulness of vigour and youth, compelled to live in an Irish workhouse, the most degrading and indefensible institution to be found in all Europe. There are 600 of these blind people in receipt of outdoor relief in Ireland.
The right hon. Gentleman says that this Bill will only be a case of giving those people oudoor relief. They are living on outdoor relief and indoor relief now, but the purpose of this measure is to divorce charity from right; to create security consistent with personal dignity. There are some things people will not endure for material things. There are people who would rather starve than go into a workhouse Therefore, any proposal that takes them out of the workhouse, and any scheme that would give them the relief to which they are entitled, is worthy of support port. Blindness is the one affliction of which by no possible distortion can it be said that the people who suffer from it are to be blamed for having brought it upon themselves. Therefore, for those who are fortunate enough to be blessed by Providence with health and sight, and the means of alleviating the sorrow of this most afflicted class, to refuse to discharge our responsibility to them, is a curious commentary upon the progress of humanitarian ideas. I congratulate those who have combined together to deal with this question and to grapple with the problem in what they regard as a satisfactory manner. I have had several interviews with these blind men upon the question of a special Bill for Ireland, and the striking thing about them is how uncomplaining they are. I know of no class which displays such tenderness, such patience, such good temper in the circumstances. They are overwhelmingly grateful to people who do the slightest thing for them. I suppose
they reason that perhaps we are too busy with other things to attend to their interests. They are the one class that seems to be the least soured by the infliction which Providence has placed upon them, and because of that infliction and because it is our duty to come to their aid, I trust that this Bill will be accepted wholly, and that this Parliament will have to its credit the carrying out of a project which will do so much for a preeminently deserving class.

Mr. F. ROBERTS: I wish to join in the chorus of approval with which this measure has been received. The right hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) has used one or two ugly phrases in his opposition to the measure, which induce me to say something in support of my colleagues on this question. He says that the assistance of the blind can only be met by two methods, charity or dole, and that whatever we may call it, it simply means indiscriminate out-door relief. I am very sorry that the right hon. Gentleman in his criticism did not go to the later Clauses in the Bill, and tell us what the Bill really does. He would have found that it does not mean doles, charity or indiscriminate outdoor relief. What the Bill asks is that the blind people who have been so unfortunate in the past shall be given the chance of becoming something like decent citizens, fulfilling all the functions and rights belonging to every other section of the community, and in return for what they are receiving under this Bill they will only be asked to give some fair value from the work which they do. Though the right hon. Gentleman somewhat facetiously referred to his own deficient sight, yet if he were some day in the unfortunate position of coming before some of these committees who will determine whether he is entitled to assistance or not, I hope that he will no more be able to mislead them on this question than he has misled the House in the consideration of this Measure. No section excites more our genuine sympathy or demands more our practical assistance. Some of us have become firmly convinced that in the past Governments of the time have not shown that consideration for the blind or that keenness to place this measure on the Statute Book that they might have done.

Sir F. BANBURY: My chief objection to this Bill is that it is not a Bill dealing with the blind at all, but goes far beyond that. If it had been a Bill limited to the blind it would have been different.

Mr. ROBERTS: ; The Bill says:
The institutions far the blind now existing are insufficient to provide technical training and employment for all blind persons capable of profiting thereby; Many blind persons, in consequence of their blindness, are unable, when fully employed, to earn sufficient wages or remuneration for their proper maintenance, and many blind persons are completely incapacitated from earning their livelihood.

Clauses 1 and 2 go on to define what is to be the position of the local authority in relation to training and to the institutions which are created.

Sir F. BANBURY: I was referring to Clause 13.

Mr. ROBERTS: It may be thought that there is no general desire for the passing of this Measure. During the past few months I have had the opportunity of addressing large audiences in various parts of the country, and there was an almost unanimousdesire that this Measure should be passed immediately. Whatever may have been the reasons which induced Governments in the past to pay no heed to the demand for the passing of this Measure, there seems no reason to doubt to-day the existence of the desire on the part of the general community that the blind shall be better treated than in days gone by. It has been established that Managers, Executives, and other bodies concerned with the administration of blind workshops and other institutions are all in favour of the passing of this or a similar Measure. Knowing that, there seems no genuine reason why we should not give whole-hearted support to it. This is a simple Measure, but it is a proposal to secure decent conditions of life for all sightless persons. Moreover, there is a definite provision for giving facilities for training and subsequent employment. That is an absolute refutation of the right hon. the Member for the City of London.
Those of us who have been associated in a more or less intimate capacity with the work of the blind, feel that this opportunity for the development of their latent faculties and rendering good service to the State has been denied to them far too long. We have never attempted to measure the position of the blind in this
country by mere considerations of £ s. d. We want to give them the opportunity of exercising all their rights as citizens. I am glad to have heard the kind things which have been said with regard to the work already done, not only through Government channels, but also through various charitable agencies in existence, but notwithstanding all that has been done, the evidence and the statistics show definitely that the position of sightless people in this country is still very precarious. Charitable institutions have accomplished much, but they will never succeed in doing all that is required if the blind are to enjoy all that is necessary in this life. There has been a great lack of opportunity for the blind to exercise whatever faculties they may possess. Under clauses 1 and 2 there are definite proposals which will enable the fullest co-operation between existing institutions and local authorities. It is this spirit of co-operation and human sympathy which may be brought about between the existing institutions and local authorities which will do so much to remedy the bad state of things that has already been created.
I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has gone, because I was going to quote some figures in reference to the City of London, where the conditions obtaining, so far as blind people are concerned, are as bad as in any other part of the country, if not worse. The London figures are only typical of the large industrial centres of the country. There are 3,552 blind in London. Those provided for by industrial means are fewer than 300. A very big proportion of the 3,500 if they had had industrial training in the early part of their lives might have become useful citizens, rendering good service to the State. It is only the inherent hostility, or the supposed hostility to industrial training that has caused this unfortunate class to become chargeable on the Poor Law or on charitable institutions. In the East End of London there has only been created one small workshop for meeting the needs of this particular class. Moreover, most of these institutions have been relying entirely on charitable support, and have found it impossible to pay anything like a decent living wage to the people whom they employ. They have been forced into a state of semi-privation and destitution because subscriptions have not been sufficient to enable the institution
management to pay a decent living wage, and that is the reason why so many managers of existing institutions and committees of existing organizations are willing to give their whole-hearted support to the proposals contained in this Bill.
In London there are 700 blind people at the moment who are said to be existing on incomes not exceeding 10s. a week. I wonder why the right hon. Member for the City of London has not ascertained these facts and told them to the House? If he had concerned himself with that side of the question he would have more sympathy with this measure. It has been pointed out by the hon. Member who introduced the scheme that so many of those who are blind become so after the age of 35 years. They are thereby compelled to seek assistance from some other quarters. If many of these people had boon dealt with prior to actual blindness coming upon them, if they had boon taken into one or other of the workshops when they first began to fear the loss of their sight, they might again have become more useful citizens and might have enjoyed the latter days of their lives. In addition to that, we find that in the case of people who have become blind after thirty-five years of age it has cost £150,000 from the Poor Law in order that they may be kept in something like decency. Properly dealt with they might become a valuable asset to the life of the community.
By this Bill we think that all sections of blinded people, the partially or wholly blind, might be better equipped to face the battle of life, and we would prevent life becoming an absolute burden to them. This Bill would give to each local authority responsibility for the proper care; and protection of the blind residing within the area of that authority. Every citizen, we are confident, would willingly become a contributor to this scheme, and such a system undoubtedly would claim many real advantages over the precarious state of things which exists now. It would be far less costly and infinitely more efficient. Those are the main points which influence us in giving our support unitedly to this Bill, because we feel that those are the advantages and that there are no disadvantages compared with the state of things existing at the present time. By ordering things as proposed we feel that there would be a much speedier end to
the intense suffering and privation which blind people are now called upon to endure. There is another consideration. Many blind people who cannot enjoy all the amenities of life are very often called upon to pay taxes for things from which they never can receive any measure of benefit. That is if set-off to one of the suggestions made by an hon. Member on the other side of the House. Much magnificent work has been done for the prevention of blindness and for the cure of blindness. We appreciate that, and are glad of the enlightened spirit which has come over the various Departments in regard to this problem. We know that the young are being much better looked after. Care and consideration are now being shown where formerly there was neglect and indifference, and the work being done should certainly lead ultimately to a reduction in the number of those who are forced into a state of permanent blindness.
2.0 P.M.
Apart from the provisions of this Bill for technical training, we claim that this preventive and rescue work should be proceeded with and developed on the widest possible lines, and that the best that science and invention can give should be devoted to this most sacred cause in the name of humanity. The same spirit which has animated those responsible for the prevention and the cure of blindness, the same spirit which has inspired those who have been dealing with young children and inspired us in the consideration of this measure, should be encouraged and developed. One point that has been raised is that the passing of this Bill might tend to decrease the flow of subscriptions from voluntary channels. I think we have sufficient evidence to show that nothing of the kind need be feared. On the contrary, we think that there would be the fullest human co-operation and sympathy between the charitably-minded and the local authorities. Much the same thing was said, I believe, before the passing of the Education Act for the Blind and Deaf in 1893. When that Act was being considered in this House it was freely stated that voluntary institutions would suffer as a result of State intervention. We are quite positive that such a fear has proved absolutely groundless, for the passing of the Act
stimulated public interest and the 36 educational establishments are richer to-day than ever. I think exactly the same effect would be produced by the operation of this particular measure. I think we can claim that the blind have been very, very very patient. They have been a very long-suffering section of the community. They have striven for many years to secure this measure. It has in past years received almost unanimous endorsement from the various sections in this House. It is one of the most satisfactory features of our Parliamentary life that we have been able during the past few months to meet in one of the Committee Booms upstairs Members drawn from all quarters of the House and that all have been able to subscribe to the principles of this measure and to express the desire that it will be placed on the Statute Book at the earliest possible moment.
The blind have been long-suffering, and they feel that now they have a right to ask for something a little more real and tangible than the promises and ex-pressions of sympathy which have been so glibly preferred in days gone by. This measure will give real and tangible expression to our thoughts, and the blind will be immeasurably benefited. In a word, this Bill seeks to establish that the blind people shall become citizens in the best sense of the word. In passing the Bill I hope we shall never entertain the idea that we are going to set blinded people in competition with those who are in possession of all their faculties. That would be a disaster. We want to do something for them so that the monotony of their lives may be relieved, so that they shall not be compelled to live in perpetual night accompanied by almost perpetual poverty. The standard of existence has to be determined, not by the amount of money which may come in from the coffers of the charitable, but the measure of support, co-operation, and assistance which shall be given to them from such proposals as are contained in this Bill. I feel confident that all sections of the House would welcome the passing of the Bill. We have a right to ask that the blind shall be given a fair chance of enjoyment of life as the smallest possible recompense for their loss of one of the greatest possible benefits—the power to see.

Viscountess ASTOR: There is nothing really more to be said about the blind, but I would like to point out that the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), in no way represents women. I believe I am right in saying that the right hon. Gentleman docs not believe in women having votes; and he certainly does not like seeing them in the House of Commons. It is exactly that attitude of the right hon. Gentleman which makes me rejoice that women have got votes. The thing about this Bill which appeals to me most is that it is not to encourage indiscriminate charity, but it is to give a real chance to the blind of working out their own salvation. Personally, I would far rather see the blind employed and given work and education than all the charity in the world. I promised the Minister of Health not to go on more than a minute and my minute is up, but I would like again to impress on the House that the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for the City, in no way represents women, and certainly not the women who have got the vote and intend to use it.

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Dr. Addison): Although my hon. Friend has made a short speech, I am sure few more effective speeches have been made in support of a Bill which is designed to give assistance to a class of people who are peculiarly unable to help themselves in consequence of their infirmity. The hon. Member who moved the Second Reading stated, in eloquent and graphic terms, the disabilities and misfortunes of the blind. I was comforted, however, by what he said and what other hon Members acquainted with this subject said as to Government action. Those hon. Members gave the Government and the Ministry of Health credit for having really done something material in this matter. In this connection it would not be fair if I were to omit a reference to the very valuable work which my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. S. Walsh) has performed on this subject. It was largely in consequence of the practical recommendations of the Advisory Committee on the Blind that we have taken very considerable practical action during recent years. Before I come to the proposals of the Bill it may not be inappropriate if I ask the House to look at the subject as a whole, so
that we may not simply content ourselves with dealing with ill effects, but consider a proper and comprehensive policy with a view to removing the causes which, to an unusual degree, happen to be preventable. I find, as the hon. Member (Mr. Tillett) stated, that a very large proportion of the blindness in the London County Council schools and allied schools, and amongst the general population, is due to a certain preventible condition. That preventible condition is venereal disease in one or other of its forms. Twenty-one per cent., for instance, of the blind are blind within six months from birth, and that blindness is almost all due to the condition to which my hon. Friend referred, and which is removable. That is one of the reasons for the expenditure which the House voted the other night by which we are giving increased assistance and providing better training for nurses, midwives, and so on to attend to the newly-born child, and it is another justification for that class of expenditure, because it is no exaggeration to say that in the case of those blind within six months of birth nearly all could have been prevented. This has to be linked up with other causes. It will be futile for the House simply to provide remedies for ill effects without at the same time securing a proper policy directed to remove the causes. There are other causes similarly preventible, and next in importance are those cases relating to industrial accidents. Nothing surprised me more in examining the reports of the Advisory Committee and others than the scrappy nature of our information on this subject. We have records from a few institutions here and there, such as the London County Council schools for blind children and the Glasgow Blind Asylum, but in the main our knowledge is of the scrappiest kind.
I am not at all satisfied, although we are developing our policy on this subject and with regard to the operation of venereal diseases, that we have yet covered ground. Therefore I shall adopt the suggestion made by the Mover that we should have a comprehensive inquiry into the causes and prevention of blindness of a scientific character, and I propose to set one up. I shall consult with my hon. Friends in the House on the matter at an early date. Some of the, ground has been covered already, though not, perhaps, in the form suggested in
this Bill. An hon. Member pointed out that we were already giving £20perhead for blind persons in workshops, and by that, he said, we are providing for the efficient training of, say, 2,500 persons. This question relates to about 30,000 people. It would appear, as far as we can tell, that of that number from 12,000 to 15,000 are unemployable, in the main because there has been no provision made to train them, so that the next step is to provide that necessary training. The Board of Education, as the House knows, requires that local authorities should provide training and facilities for education and so on, suitable for blind children, and the Board of Education is proposing also to extend that form of training by giving assistance to properly considered schemes put up by institutions now aided by voluntary organisations as well as by public authorities, to some of which my hon. Friend paid a high and quite deserved tribute. Some of these organisations have acquired a wealth of experience and have managed very well, and the Board of Education proposes to assist them under suitable conditions to improve their training facilities. I agree with the supporters of the Bill that this is not enough, and before I pass from that subject I want to mention one proposal which the Government will wish to see embodied in any legislation adopted by this House, and that is this. There is a serious danger, I find, from a Report of the Advisory Committee, that a number of bodies appealing for subscriptions for the blind should not make as good a use as we should like of the subscriptions obtained, and whilst the promoters of the Bill recognise that we cannot afford to do anything but give the best help possible to those experienced and thoroughly trustworthy agencies which have given a vast deal of voluntary assistance to the blind, we must take care that the interests of the blind and the sympathies of the public are not exploited by those agencies which are not worthy of support.
Therefore, we shall propose as a part of this Bill that we shall have power to require the registration of agencies appealing for support of a voluntary character for the blind, and no doubt they could be registered in an appropriate manner,
into which I need not now go, which would not involve any supervision in the obnoxious sense. It is essential that the workshop accommodation should be increasing, and therefore the Government are prepared to support proposals whereby county councils, county borough councils, and possibly other bodies may be authorised to provide and maintain or to contribute towards the provision and maintenance of workshops, hostels, homes, and other places for the reception of the blind. We are prepared to see that that is embodied in any legislation, and it goes a very long way to cover the proposals of this Bill. Also it is clear that that will necessitate some assistance to the capital provision of the necessary workshops. If the House will bear in mind the figures I gave, of 30,000, of which a large number are children and aged persons—and I am glad to say that blindness among children is diminishing—they will see that the problem is not of such a magnitude from the point of view of numbers that it would be reasonable and economical to expect that in every area, every authority should set up a separate organisation or workshop for the blind. It would be a wasted effort, and while I join issue with the movers of the Bill on that point, one point which I welcome in the Bill is that it provides that authorities may join together in the provision of such accommodation. But it is clear that the number of teachers to give training is very limited, and we shall find in this, as in almost everything else, that the lack of suitable competent persons to run them is the limiting factor. Therefore any appropriate scheme should provide for a relatively small number of shops and an adequate staff Also it is proposed that we should have a grant in aid, and that it should be 50 per cent. of the capital contribution.
In regard to the problem of preventing the able-bodied blind becoming unemployable, that must be done by the proper provision of a sufficient number of training places and workshops, or the support of those properly administered now, with the possibility of extension, but it is not a problem which requires the establishment of this kind of organisation everywhere. We only need them in a sufficient number of selected centres. This is the most difficult side of it, namely, the persons who are blind and who really have got past the age at which
they can be trained or taught how to support themselves, and they are, of course, in large numbers at the present time in workhouses. But I am very anxious that we should not reform our Poor Law piecemeal by setting up in anticipation a number of hostels which would have to be scrapped afterwards, and we have been engaged, as the House knows, in accordance with the pledges given by the Government, on working at the necessary legislation on this gigantic subject for some time past. You cannot lightly introduce proposals relating to the complicated issues arising out of the reform of the Poor Laws. Therefore, I do not want to set up everywhere these county committees and so forth, as suggested here, for giving assistance to the indigent and unemployable blind. That would really be setting up a scheme, which I do not want to anticipate in view of the reforms we have to make for dealing with the Poor Law as a whole. It would be a great pity to deal piecemeal with reform. Consequently, I am suggesting, for the interim, to make use of certain machinery we have already got.
After going into the matter quite carefully, it appeared to me that blind persons, after the age of 50, cannot as a rule be taught anything. We propose, therefore, to make a special form of relief at the age of 50 for those who are blind and not able to support themselves according to the definition. We propose to use the same machinery that we have got now with regard to the administration of Old Age Pensions, and we propose that any blind person between the ages of 60 and 70, subject to the same disqualifications as to income and so forth, shall receive the same benefits and weekly allowances as old age pensioners get. That would mean that all these people would be able to receive 10s. a week, or whatever it is which they would be entitled to receive under the old age pension scale, with the same disqualifications as apply to the Old Age Pension. That would really meet straight away the case of almost all the 46 per cent. of the blind who are indigent and who are too old to be taught anything. We must rely mainly on the development of the workshops and training places to teach people to earn money for themselves, I think the promoters of the Bill will see that the Government have given
very careful consideration to this matter. We want to meet the difficulties with them in a friendly spirit, and I therefore suggest that, while the House gives this Bill a Second reading, I will consult those who are interested in this subject, and either re-form this Bill, or introduce another to give effect to the proposals of the Government.

Mr. CLYNES: I rise to express in just one sentence with what pleasure I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman unfold his own story and his real sympathy with those who are the subject of this Bill, and the very practical and far-reaching proposals to deal with the difficulties which this Bill has tried to cover. The right hon. Gentleman has indicated the acceptance by the Government of the Bill, and we trust that, in giving practical effect to what has been outlined this afternoon, not a moment's time will be lost. That is really a great consideration to the blind population of this country who, for a long time, have agitated and struggled and appealed in vain, and who now, apparently, are to have many of their highest wishes realised. I hope, therefore, the Government, through the activities of my right hon. Friend, will lose no time in giving practical effect to what he has expressed to the House this afternoon.

Mr. HAROLD SMITH: I would like to join in congratulations to my right hon. Friend and the Government for the sympathy which they have extended to this most deserving Measure, and to add a very mild expression of regret that the Government has not yet made up its mind as to whether this Bill is to be the framework of the Government's proposal, or whether the Government is to re-draft the Bill, r think it is a pity that we are asked to agree to the Second Reading of a Bill which my right hon. Friend and his advisers think is in the wrong form. I would like to have a little more definite-ness, because in his final sentences the right hon. Gentleman said he hoped the House would give a Second Reading to this Bill, after which the Government would decide whether they would re-form it or bring in another Bill. I should have thought the Government might have arrived at a decision before my right hon. Friend made his speech.

Mr. McGUFFIN: I will not venture to offer to the House any remarks I contemplated, in view of the fact that the Minister
representing the Government in this matter has met us in such a sympathetic spirit. I do not want to say more at the moment than to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to give consideration to the claims of primary and secondary education for the blind people.

Dr. ADDISON: My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary asks me to say that both these matters will be dealt with in the Irish Education Bill.

Mr. McGUFFIN: I beg to thank the right hon. Gentleman. He said in this respect the blind in Ireland suffered a very serious disability. It is no good talking about technical education to those who are perfectly ignorant in the matter of elementary education. Ireland has a special claim here, because proportionately there are more blind in Ireland than in England or Scotland. There are over 7,000 blind people in Ireland who, for the most part, are inmates of workhouses, or destitutes or mendicants, which is enough to sadden the heart of the representatives of that country. I am very glad to see that there is such a benevolent spirit in this House towards this Bill, and I would like to express my appreciation of the passionate and eloquent appeal that has been made by the Mover of this Bill on behalf of these unfortunate people. As a representative of labour, with my other colleagues here, I had the opportunity of interviewing some of these blind people with regard to the Bill, and I cannot help saying with what feelings of sympathy I listened to their appeal. I would impress upon the House that if these people are afflicted with regard to physical eyesight, they are, in many instances, splendidly endowed with intellect, and it would be' nothing but a misfortune if the proposals in this Bill were not carried into effect. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the intimation he has made on behalf of Ireland, and my Labour colleagues and I propose to give our best support to the Bill.

Sir R. NEWMAN: I merely rise to get enlightenment upon one point. Is it the fixed decision of the Government that the 10s. per week shall be granted to blind people between 50 and 70, and, if so, is it to be brought in by a Bill, or in what manner? I should also like to know from the right hon. Gentleman if the Government have made up their minds that this is to be a hard and fast rule;
if so, my experience of Poor Law administration makes me rather disappointed at that announcement. The average man or woman between 50 and 60 who is in the workhouse, and blind, is hardly likely to regain his freedom by the payment of this 10s, which is a sum perfectly inadequate for the purpose. In nine cases out of ten they will remain in the workhouse. I trust the amount will be reconsidered, for, I repeat, that 10s. is perfectly inadequate, in my opinion, to achieve the object which I am quite sure my right hon. Friend has in view—that is to enable these people to leave the workhouse.

Sir W. SEAGER: I rise very heartily to support the Bill. I am glad to know that the House has such deep sympathy and interest in the unfortunate people who are blind. It has been my privilege and, pleasure to work in connection with a very large institution, one similar to that referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, the Minister for Health, in Cardiff. I have worked for many years in it, and have also acted as chairman. We were able, by voluntary assistance, to give to all the men and the women we employed the trade union rate of wages. We found often that that was not sufficient, and we then raised a sum of money which we called an Augmentation Fund, and from that, even during the stress of war, we were enabled to increase the wages of these people 100 per cent. We realised, however, that this Bill goes very much further than voluntary effort, and it will enable those, and I am sorry to say they are many, who do not sympathise with these unfortunate brothers and sisters and are not willing to help in the voluntary efforts made to aid by spreading the burden over the whole community, thus going a long way to relieve the difficulties under which our blind people suffer. I was greatly interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich said. It touched me deeply. I am sure the efforts of hon. Members in all parts of the House will combine to help in this matter, and with the assurance of the Ministry of Health, will put the question of the blind on such a basis that in the future they will be able to live brighter, happier, and fuller lives than ever before. All they want is sympathetic help and guidance. At Cardiff—and here I differ from the right hon. Gentleman—we have trained
men over fifty years to work at making cork fenders for use on board ship. They are able to do this very efficiently, and they earn considerable money. We have also basket-makers, mat-makers, and men in other industries. I am sure that the they want is really loving and sympathetic help, and then they will do all they can to help themselves.

Captain REDMOND: Perhaps it is rather a unique experience for me, but I desire to join with the hon. Member for one of the Divisions of Belfast who has just spoken for the sentiments he has expressed in regard to this Bill. I regret exceedingly that this Measure has been introduced by a Private Member. That being so, however, I certainly welcome the statement made by the Government that it will be taken up and facilities given to it. The National League of Blind in Ireland suggested a separate Bill for that country only last year. They not only suggested, but drafted and printed a Bill. They hoped the Government would take it up. As in most matters, however, in which my country is concerned, the Government let it alone. As to the present Bill, I have no fault to find, but I would say that we in Ireland are in a very different position in regard to the blind from the people of this country. We have not got the great industrial institutions nor the same charitable sources on which to draw as in this rich land of yours. Therefore the blind in Ireland are certainly in a worse position than the blind in this country. There are no less than 7,000 blind people in Ireland. So far as I can ascertain, of that number a small proportion, only about 250, are employed, and certainly not more than 500. There are a great many in various institutions—400. There are 700 in the workhouses, 500 receiving outdoor relief, and, 3,000 roughly, depending upon their friends.
I think that a separate Bill would have been better for Ireland. Ireland deserves distinct recognition and differential treatment in this regard. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I am glad to find that in that observation I am in unison with my hon. Friends opposite. The Government, through their spokesman to-day, have informed us that they intend to facilitate the passage of this Bill, and I am very glad indeed of that decision. I would like to support the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Exeter. If the Government
are willing to support these people, why not support them properly? What is the good of giving a blind person between 50 and 70 a sum that everyone knows to-day nobody can live upon, and a sum which will not keep the person concerned out of the workhouse or the institution which we do not wish them to go to, and which they go to through no fault of their own? I would appeal to the Government to make a more liberal grant to the people who are suffering from this awful disability. We know from the efforts at St. Dunstan's Homo that there is practically no limit to the capacity of blind soldiers in the matter of work for which they can be trained. But I should like to impress upon the Government that the frightful effects of the war and the legacy of the blind in the Army and of ox-Service men should be taken into consideration.
There is a very large percentage indeed of men who have been blinded by poison-gas and the other methods adopted by our enemies, and that special consideration should be given to their case. It is not proper for the Government to wait until these men reach 50 or thereabouts before they bring proper relief. These men, in the exercise of their duty, and while they were attempting to defend their country, were placed in this unfortunate position. Therefore I desire to support this Measure. It docs not go as far as I would like. It should be a Government Measure. This is a duty which should fall on the Government, and there is evidence of a great lack of public capacity on the part of the Government when they wait for a private Member to introduce a Measure such as this. But a private Member having done so, it becomes the bounden duty of the Government to do everything possible to assist and support these poor people who, from no fault of their own, are in such a helpless position. I would remind the Minister for Health that there has not been one single speech this afternoon against the Bill, although perhaps the right hon. Baronet, the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), may have said a few words slightly derogatory to this particular proposal. He however, I am sure, is not opposed to doing everything possible to support those people. I suggest the Government should not only take up this Bill, but that they should also embark on a drastic measure of relief
for these people in all quarters of the United Kingdom, having regard to the particular circumstances of every portion of the country.

Captain LOSEBY: I want to be allowed most respectfully to congratulate the hon. Gentleman who has introduced this Bill, which appears to me to be generous in spirit and well thought out in detail. The hon. Gentleman is associated, not for the first time, with a noble cause. I also want to join in the congratulations which have been offered both to him and to the Seconder. I had intended to get up in anticipation of the plea of poverty that I thought might be raised. I agree with hon. Members who have spoken that the proposals of the Government in this Measure are not entirely satisfactory, as after we have done everything we can to train them and fit them to earn a livlihood there still remains much to be done, and I entirely agree with the Mover of the Bill, that their maintenance should be provided for completely by the State. Ten shillings a week in these days is nothing like adequate for that, and once again, on general principles, I want to enter my protest against such a plea being advanced. May I give one simile; it is in connection with the Army. An Army, however hard pressed, gets back its broken men. It acknowledges its collective responsibility. It does not leave them to the efforts of comradeship alone, but, collectively, it seeks to get them back, and the first sign of demoralisation in the Army is when it neglects that duty. So it is with the State. We are told that one person in every thousand is blind, and we are asked to take a thousandth part of the responsibility of completely maintaining that blind man. If we are prepared to put up a plea of poverty in regard to that with collective responsibility, then I say we are in a very sorry plight indeed. The hon. Member who introduced this Bill, and those who act with him, hold the opinion that, in spite of all our dificulties, we are in a position to accept that responsibility. I think the majority of hon. Members will agree, and I hope that those who support the Bill in Committee will do everything in their power to impress on the Government their desire to fulfil our responsibility to these men, and to not allow that responsibility to be whittled away.

Mr. DONNELLY: As far as Ireland is concerned, the blind there are in a peculiarly wretched state. They are for the most part of a lower standard of education, and where an unfortunate person is stricken with this affliction, and his standard of education is low, his state of helplessness is a great deal more marked than where the standard of education is high. In Ireland there are 3,000 derelict blind, who for the most part wander through the towns and villages begging of whomsoever they can. In England the position is different. The standard of education is on a higher plane, and the blind are not nearly so helpless. In Ireland we have none of those splendid institutions which you have in this country, and which in some measure alleviate the wretchedness of those who are blind. I see the Bill places certain powers in the hands of a local authority: that is, of the council of any county or borough. I would venture to suggest to the promoters that the proper authority in Ireland will be the Poor Law authority, which is much more in touch with the people, and, therefore, better fitted to do the work than any county council or any local authority set up specially by this Apt. I join in the chorus of congratulation which has come from every side of the House to the pro motors of the Bill. After all, we owe a very great debt to these poor people. We cannot restore their sight, we cannot restore to them the blessings they have lost, and the very least we can do is to attempt to alleviate their misery and give them a brighter outlook in life.

Mr. HARBISON: I am in entire sympathy with the spirit of the Bill, but I think it is wrongly conceived. I see that the burden of the expenditure in connection with this Bill is thrown upon the local rates. This should not be made a local question or be placed upon the local rates; it is a national question. I understand that the Government have undertaken to take up this Bill and to put it through. They should not leave the education, support, and maintenance of the blind dependent upon the local rates. I happen to be a member of a local authority, and, as far as Ireland is concerned, our Local Authorities at the present time have quite enough burden to carry.

Sir F. BANBURY: They have in England too.

Mr. HARBISON: We have very big undertakings in this age of reconstruction, and we are trying to keep our end up in advancing everything that is likely to be useful to the community. Our local rates, however, are not sufficient to carry out the undertakings upon which we have embarked, and, if the Government take up this question of encouraging the blind, it should be made a national scheme, and the cost should be placed upon the National Exchequer. The Local Authorities have very limited funds, and I fear that the needs will not be met by contributions from the local rates. Ireland, as the hon. Member for South Armagh (Mr. Donnelly) has said, has a very largo proportion of aged blind who cannot receive any useful instruction in learning a trade, and who are absolutely mendicants at the present time unable, through not fault of their own, of earning a livelihood. Those men and women should not be thrown upon the local rates, but should be provided for out of the public exchequer. It is not their own fault that they have no education. They are over fifty years of age, and it is more than fifty years since we got anything in the way of education in Ireland. It is the fault of the Government in this country that Ireland was not educated, and that these people from fifty to seventy years of age are at present suffering from the system that existed when they were of school age. It is, therefore, a question of national moment, and the burden should be thrown, not upon the local ratepayers, but upon the taxpayers of the three Kingdoms. That is the only objection that I have to the Bill. I am entirely in sympathy with the spirit and object of it, but I say that it should not be taken up in any cheese-paring spirit. Someone has suggested that these old people should be placed upon the same level as the Old Age Pensioners. They should be placed upon a higher level, because they are absolutely helpless. Some Old Age Pensioners have some small means, but those people have none, and the amount allowed for their maintenance in their declining years should he a little higher than the dole given to the Old Age Pensioners. Subject to that objection, I support the spirit of the Bill with all my heart, but I say that its provisions should be expanded to give these people the life of ordinary human beings. The 10s.
allowed to Old Age Pensioners is not sufficient at the present time to keep body and soul together. If the Government take up this Bill, they will have our heartiest support, but I hope that its terms will be made more generous than those at present proposed.

3.0 P.M.

Colonel BURN: As one who has always been in favour of the care of the blind being undertaken either by local government bodies or by the State, I wish to support this Measure. The matter has been brought nearer homo to us since the War, because we have had return so many soldiers who have suffered in their eyesight from the devices employed by the Germans. Those men have almost as good as given their lives, and they deserve some special care from the State. We have hopes of great things in the future. Undoubtedly, many children of this country suffer from defective sight, but now that we have a Ministry of Health we hope that the matter will be taken in hand, and that children threatened with blindness will be taken care of at an early age and their sight preserved. We have in many parts of this country institutions for the training of the blind, and it is possible, if they are taken at a young age, that their education may be carried out, and that they may be enabled, to some extent, to earn their livelihood. That, however, can only be playing with the trouble now that we have so many more cases of men who have lost their sight. We know that at St. Dunstans a great deal has been done. I would like to give credit to a blind officer who lost his sight in the South African War, Captain Towse, who won the Victoria Cross, and who has been indefatigable in going round these establishments and encouraging the blind. I have heard on more than one occasion that the blind men have received the greatest comfort and consolation from the ministration of Captain Towse, because he has proved to them from his own experience that blindness, after all, can be grappled with, and that, if blind men and women are taken in hand, there is no doubt that the other senses can be very decidedly quickened. That is done by education and by the example of a man who knows what he is talking about. Anything that can be done in that way is but a small recognition of the men who have come home
after the War, having lost their sight entirely. It is not so easy to train them so as to make them self-supporting as it is to train young children. I am not quite sure whether the expense of maintaining the blind should be borne by the local authorities or should be entirely a State measure. If it is borne by the local authority, the men and women who are blind, and are living in that district, would have the responsibility of their maintenance accepted by that district. I should prefer to see the matter taken up as a State charge, because in that way the best work would be done, and it is really a national responsibility. I hope the Bill will go through without a Division, and that when it goes into Committee there will be no opposition, but that wherever attempts can be made to introduce better measures we shall all welcome them.

Mr. D. IRVING: rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Brigadier General SURTEES: Some of the speakers should have reproached the Government for the somewhat niggardly terms in which they have dealt with the whole subject. There should be the most generous treatment of those people. I beg to support the Bill.

Sir HENRY COWAN: This Bill has been introduced by the Labour party. It has been blessed by the Government, and it is evident that the whole House is in favour of it. It does not, therefore, seem necessary to have a long discussion upon it, especially as another important Bill is waiting for the attention of the House. I desire, however, to record my opinion that the care of the blind should be a national and not a local charge.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

LIQUOR TRAFFIC LOCAL VETO (IRELAND) BILL.

Order for Second Heading read.

Mr. T. BURN: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
This is the first occasion on which I have had the opportunity and advantage
of addressing the House I think I could advance many reasons in favour of the Bill, but I will rely upon two main points. When we remember how much misery and crime has been associated with the results of the liquor traffic, I think it is unnecessary to dwell very much upon that. I think we ought to do something to relieve the people from the temptations which surround them. My second point is that the Bill is thoroughly democratic. It gives to the Parliamentary electors the right to say whether or not this traffic should be allowed in their midst. Members who have read the Bill will see that there is no provision for compensation in it, which I very much regret, but that is due to the fact that it is a Private Member's Bill, and after the experience that we had with another Private Member's Bill, which was ruled out of Order, we withdrew the provision for compensation. But we have included an arrangement similar to that of the Scottish Temperance Bill. This gives those who are in the trade an opportunity of arranging for a scheme of compensation among themselves. A poll can be demanded by ten per cent. of the Parliamentary electors, and only Parliamentary electors will be enabled to vote. Once a poll has been taken it cannot be taken again for three years. A poll can be taken in any county borough, urban district or rural district. The local authority will be the authority for carrying out the poll under regulations made by the Local Government Board. I hope the House will give this Bill a Second Beading, and that we will be able to remove any defects when it comes to the Committee stage.

Mr. W. COOTE: I beg to second the Motion. It is very much demanded by the people whom we represent. A great change has come over the minds and feelings of the people of the North of Ireland with reference to this Bill, and practically all the Unionist members from the province of Ulster are pledged to Local Option. We are not averse to reasonable compensation, but we think some measure ought to be brought into existence whereby people should have the right to say whether public houses should be planted or continued in their midst. If you look at the returns you will see that in Ireland there is a plethora of public houses. We have in some districts in towns and villages a public house for every fifty people. They draw their living from their people, who
come into the town or village from a wider area to attend fairs and markets, and these publicans resort to many tricks in order that they may carry on their business on an economic and paying basis. As a result the trafic is demoralised, and some reconstruction is insistently demanded by the ratepayers. We propose the Bill also from a still higher standpoint than that of economics. If child life is to be preserved, if the homes of the people are to be preserved, if the women folk of the country are to be preserved, we must have power to see that the ravages of this trade shall be in some way restricted. We see what has been done in the Dominions and in the United States of America which, one after another, have gone "dry," and as a result of that fact, the men and women appear in their right minds and are able to attend to their business for six days a week. All that waste is taken away. We must have a similar condition of things not only in Ireland, but throughout the three Kingdoms so that we may control the ravages of the trade. About one-sixth of our man power is made non-efficient by the liquor traffic. We support this Bill also on account of its moral effect. The time has come when the people of a district should not have the public house, with its attendant evils and the examples which they see around its doors close to their children, foisted in their midst by any body which is not elective and does not represent the people. All the churches are coming into line on the question and are insisting that from the moral point of view this traffic should be curtailed if not entirely swept away. For these reasons, with the greatest possible heartiness, I second the Motion.

Mr. DEVLIN: In all my experience of Parliament this is the most extraordinary exhibition I have ever seen. Here is a proposal dealing with one of the most vital concerns that touch the life of the people, proposing to make a great and radical change in Ireland in the destruction of the personal liberties of the people and the ruin of many men who have their money invested in property in the country, and yet such is the contempt of hon. Members opposite for the intelligence of this House, that they have occupied precisely ten minutes in stating their case. They have a lower opinion of the intelligence
of Parliament than I have. If you are going to make so profound and so vast and radical a change in the life of Ireland, and you come and ask an assembly, not of Irishmen but of Englishmen, to do this thing, you have a right to give reasons why this change ought to be made. I object to the introduction of this Bill altogether. Here are a number of gentlemen from a corner of Ireland, without authority, without a mandate, without inspiration from any part of the country, introducing this Bill and coming here to an English assembly to ask for this change to be made in the conditions of Ireland, which no Englishman proposes should be done for England.

Mr. COOTE: What about Scotland?

Mr. DEVLIN: In the case of Scotland, the Local Veto Bill was introduced and passed because, as far as I can gather, through the constitutionally-expressed will of the Scottish people, they wanted it. I am not so sure that when the people come to vote upon it they will be very grateful to those who introduced and passed it, but that is another matter. There is nothing so hypocritical or farcical as the introduction of these measures dealing with education and with drink and other great questions of the most vital concern to the nation in this English Parliament on the very eve of the introduction of a measure which proposes to transfer all these powers and responsibilities to Irish bodies. Are you so insecure in your belief in the wisdom or the justice of the claim you make for the passage of this Bill that you are not prepared to submit it to one of these local bodies which you blessed the other day? You went over to Belfast to baptise your own baby. Instead of doing so, you drowned it in the waters of the Boyne, and now, perhaps because you have no faith in the justice of the cause upon which you claim the judgment of tills House of Commons, you are introducing this wretched measure in the hope that because the numbers of Irish representatives are few you will smuggle it through the House of Commons.
I road in one of the series of speeches delivered by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) that he was now the "Member for Ireland." I think the Member for Ireland ought to be here. Why should he desert his new constituents? He says everyone goes to him and asks him to do everything for
Ireland, but surely, with his whole party in solemn array, after having passed through all the trials and perils of the voyage, after considerable political excitement in the North of Ireland, he ought to be here to take charge of this Bill himself, because he alone of all the unionist Members has either the capacity of the eloquence or the power to make such a Bill as this either defensible or arguable. Everyone knows the record of the right hon. Gentleman on the liquor question. He has never once voted for any measure of temperance in the House of Commons nor, indeed, has any of his party You can go over the records of the Division Lists for the last quarter of a century, and you will not find the name of the representative of all Ireland recorded as voting in favour of a single temperance measure for this country. I believe in that matter he was right, because most of these temperance measures were not temperance measures at all. They were simply doing what hon. Members opposite are trying to do, namely, in the name of temperance, trying to destroy the personal liberty of the citizen. My experience is that temperance men do not so much want to make people sober as to rob the public. I never knew a temperance man who was temperate. I never knew an apostle of this cause who was not intolerant. They say their point of view is the only point of view, and in order to make other people sober, they not only deny private rights and privileges and personal liberty to other citizens, but they want to make people sober at the expense of other people. It was dishonest for the hon. Member (Mr. Coote) to say he was in favour of compensation. Why do you not put it in the Bill if you are in favour of it?

Mr. COOTE: We could not do it.

Mr. DEVLIN: Because you would not be allowed to do it by the temperance fanatics. You are simply bearing out what I have said.

Mr. COOTE: You try us in Committee.

Mr. DEVLIN: ; I would not try you anywhere. Even these gentlemen who rate the public intelligence of this Parliament lower than I do, and that is not very high, have declared many times on the public platform that it would be
unfair to destroy the business even of publicans without compensation. [Hex. MEMBER: "Hear, hear!"] By their applause, perhaps the only applause I shall get from them for the remainder of the year, they recognise it now. What is the House of Commons to think of gentlmen who not only believe in compensation, and have declared for it, and whose only justification for the introduction of this measure is that they have told the people that if they rob the publican they will compensate him for his loss, who now introduce a Bill, which they propose to carry through Parliament, in which there is not a single line that offers compensation to the men whose property they are going to confiscate? I do not hear any applause now. I prefer to have their pre-Parliament declaration incorporated in an Act of Parliament than to be left to the hopeless maze of Parliamentary discussion and controversy in Committee that will never meet.
Now I come back to my original form. I want to know in regard to this Bill, which is a Bill for all Ireland, why should the right hon. and learned Member for Duncairn (Sir E. Carson), with all his persuasive eloquence, not come down to the House and make a case for this Bill. There are other Demosthenes and Ciceros here. Why are they silent? If the right hon. Member for all Ireland cannot be here, where are the other apostles of great causes who lead the House of Commons with their inspiring eloquence? Although they have proposed this Bill they do not believe in it, they do not want it, they are not serious about it, but at the crack of "the whip of a number of people in Belfast, who represent nobody but themselves, who are fanatics, who will not pay for their fanaticism, who want to have virtue at other peoples' expense, they bring forward this Bill. That is the whole clientele that gathers round the standard of the eloquent Mover of this Bill and the equally eloquent, but not so very irresistible, speaker who followed, It may be said that though the rest of Ireland does not want this Bill, Belfast wants it. If Belfast wants anything, Belfast should get it. Belfast is the hub of the universe; there is no place like it in the world. It is the ark of the covenant, the gate of heaven, the holy of holies. Therefore, these gentlemen believe that any scheme or proposals, however
grotesque or dishonest, however it may inflict personal wrong or suffering upon any section of the community, if it comes from Belfast, this Parliament will swallow it. There are-not many people here to swallow it, and I do not think it will be swallowed. They can come here and talk about leaving all these conceros that affect the lives of the people to a Parliament or Parliaments to be set up in Ireland, and then ask this English Parliament, which knows nothing about Ireland, and cares less, to carry a local veto Bill for Ireland.
May I respectfully ask if local veto is a good thing, why do not the English Members propose it for themselves? If this Bill is carried through, and imposed upon Ireland against Ireland's will—as it would be imposed upon Ireland against Ireland's will if it were carried—then I will take mighty good care to propose a local veto Bill for England. If local veto is such a luxury, why give it to Ireland, and why impose it upon Ireland ", You are not so fond of us that you are ready to impose upon us all the good things that we do not ask for. Therefore, if Englishmen want to have a local veto Bill, let them propose it for themselves. I say to anyone who is a Home Ruler he has no right whatever, consistent with his principles, namely, the right of the people to determine not only their own destinies, but to conduct all their own domestic, industrial, and economic concerns, to vote for this Bill. It is the business of a Home Ruler to leave this question to Ireland itself. I am not sure what my opinion would be upon this question if I were in a Parliament of my own.

Viscountess ASTOR: Ah!

Mr. DEVLIN: I do not understand the meaning of that meticulous interjection. I hope that the hon. Member who made it will understand that the principle I have laid down is very simple. The principle is that if you are going to reform a nation you must reform it from within. You have no right to apply your British virtues to Irish vices. You have a house in disorder yourself; put it in order. If we are to have our house in order we will order our own house. The question of dealing with the drink problem, the education problem and other problems are not questions that an English Parliament ought to solve, and an English Parliament ought not to allow Bills to be presented
for dealing with such problems, when you are on the very eve of the introduction of a measure to deal with the internal economic, industrial, and intellectual life of the nation. I do not know how any member. Unionist, Liberal or even Coalition Liberal can so far transgress that ordinary accepted principle of any sensible assembly.
There has not been a single demand for this Measure from any part of Ireland outside a few fanatical organisations in Belfast. When Belfast does anything it is always fanatical. When they want to prevent a political change they have a rebellion, and when they want to have a Local Veto Bill, even though they are in favour of compensation, they dare not propose it. But even Belfast—for which Gentleman opposite claims to speak, although they do not, beacause I represent one-fourth of the community, the most enlightened and intelligent portion—does not want this Bill. I will ask some of the orators who follow mo to quote a single Resolution passed by any responsible body in Belfast, outside the temperance organisations, in favour of this Bill. The municipal council of Belfast, the civic body that controls the destinies of the city, the Board of Guardians, the Harbour Trust, even the Water Board, did not pass resolutions in favour. There was an election the other day for the Water Board, and two men elected were the representatives of the publicans. There is no demand for the Bill in the rest of Ireland, and hon. Gentlemen opposite have not shown that there is a demand for it even in Belfast, outside the interested parties. This is a policy of introducing Bills by a number of Gentlemen who do not believe in the merits of their proposals, but who, because they have been able to overawe the judgment of this House and the constitutional will of the people through this House on other questions, think that they can come here and overawe the will and the intelligence of Members of this House, and get them to swallow a Measure of this sort.
The Bill was only printed last night. What was it supposed to do. It proposes in the first place that in a city like Belfast, Dublin or Cork, the question not whether you will have a diminution of licences, but whether the licences will disappear is to be submitted, and if it is carried by a majority every one of these houses is
to be closed. It is quite common in Ireland, and not uncommon in this country, for not more than 40 per cent. of the voters to vote at some of the Municipal elections. So in this case 91 per cent. of the community can determine the personal rights and liberties of 79 per cent. More ridiculous still, where the temperance organisations are strong, with patient powerful propaganda and their large funds, they can carry the local veto as a possible local measure—though I do not think they would—in Belfast, and they might not carry it in the next village or town. The result would be that if by such an authority as I have described local veto were carried in Belfast, you would still have the public houses open in Dunmurry, Lisburn, Portadown, and Lurgan. Was there ever so grotesque a situation to find the public houses closed up in a great industrial and shipbuilding district like Belfast and kept open in little villages around the city where there would be a regular procession from Belfast of the 79 per cent. and of a considerable portion of the other? Because I have rarely found that the most violent temperance orator is the most extreme abstainer, that a gentleman, who was by no means a total abstainer, and who was a Member of this House, but is not now in this House, was always first in the Lobby and last out of it, in support of all these temperance measures. I asked him how that was, and he said, "I know the evil that drink does to myself and I want to prevent others suffering in the same way." Therefore, do not take me as arguing that a man is dishonest because he preaches temperance and at the same time is not a teetotaller, but at the same time, I do object that that class of man who votes away public houses in a given area will have the full knowledge in his mind that if he does not find at his door a public house hospitably inviting him to come in he can immediately go to an adjacent village, and there get all the drink that he wishes. We know the effect that stealthy drinking of that sort has on the moral of the people. I tell the House frankly my view on the drink question. I do not mind if you turn on the tap in every distillery and every brewery in the three Kingdoms and never again allow one glass to be manufactured, if you compensate the people whose property
you destroy. If this is a good thing for society, if these temperance proposals are necessary for the welfare of the State, for industrial efficiency or for the elevation of the people, then how can they with justice carry through this at the cost of personal suffering and ruin to these people, most of whom, rearly all or whom, would prefer to be in other business, but have been thrown into that business and have given their lives to building it up, subject to legal caprices consequent upon the ever changing liquor legislation, and compelled to carry on their avocation under conditions more perilous and irritating than those of any other branch of trade or industries in these isles? To tell these men simply because somebody gets drunk that their public house is to be closed, their trade is to be destroyed, and that everything that they and their wives and families are dependent is to be ruined in order that somebody who cannot behave themselves can limit his appetite for drink, is not just.
But apart altogether from the question of compensation, conditions in Ireland are entirely different from what they are in this country. In England, when magistrates began to exercise the power to extinguish licences in 1901, 1902, 1903, and 1904, an Act was passed in 1904 prohibiting the taking away of a licence without compensation on any ground except misconduct. In Scotland the magistrate always enjoyed freedom of action in extinguishing licences. I do not know the law very well in England, but I know what it is in Ireland. A man has security for a licence in Scotland for only one year. It was perfectly within the province of the magistrate to refuse the licence, and the licensee knew that he had the licence only on a yearly tenure, and that he had no grievance if the magistrate refused to renew the licence. In Ireland it is quite different. In Ireland since 1877 the right of a publican to renewal and transfer has existed unchallenged unless on grounds of character. In that year the Recorder of Dublin refused a licence to a person named Clithero on the ground of the number of existing licences. Four judges of the Queens Bench unanimously hold that the Court of Licensing sessions had no jurisdiction whatever to refuse the licence on that ground. That decision was appealed against, and years
later it was upheld by Lord Justice Barry. Legal recognition, therefore, of the position of the licence holder in Ireland is a matter of some importance without any local veto measure.
After all, this is not an effective method of putting a stop to drink at all. The decision of the question is to be left to the caprice of the area, and the area is the city. Take communities like those of Belfast, and Dublin and Cork. Suppose you have local veto in Belfast, and you do not have it in Dublin or in Cork. If you are going to deal with the drink problem you will not solve it in this slip-shod fashion. You will either have to deal with it as a whole or not touch it at all. I remember travelling in America through a prohibition State. One of the attendants was asked to bring a drink for a friend of mine and possibly one for myself, though I cannot remember it. The attendant said we could not get the drinks as it was a prohibition State. But in five minutes we were in a State which was not prohibitionist. We passed through a shaky area of prohibition and entered the golden gates. What was the result? That those of us who were partially thirsty in a prohibition State, by waiting, were inspired to imbibe considerably larger draughts than we would have drunk if the common-sense and reasonable liberty had been exhibited of allowing a person legitimately to quench his thirst without being anxious for an unnecessary contribution to the satiation of his passion.
I would gladly answer any arguments that might be advanced in favour of this Measure, if there were any arguments to answer, and I would enrich myself by exercising the power of analysing the intellectual limitations of my opponents. Unfortunately they have not even displayed their limitations and, therefore, I have nothing to oppose. This Bill has nothing to be said in favour of it. If it has, why do not hon. Members say it? Do not think that the hon. Gentleman opposite has exhausted all his eloquence in a Presbyterian temple in New York or that the hon. Gentleman opposite has run oratorically dry after his itinerary through Ulster in trying to make presentable the baby known as the Home Rule Bill for Ireland. Nothing of the sort. They have plenty of eloquence; they are inexhaustible. But this is a thing which no eloquence can justify
or defend. They say they are in favour of compensation, but there is not a word about compensation in the Bill. All I have to say is, that they put at a very low rate the intelligence of the British Parliament if they think a measure of this sort will be passed into law, I ask the House to reject the Bill and to leave the question to a Parliament in Ireland, if there ever is one—to leave it to the people themselves to decide this question.

Mr. LINDSAY: The hon. Member is right in saying that there are Members on this side who are pledged to compensation. I certainly was. Under no circumstances will I vote for this Bill on the Third Reading unless adequate compensation is provided for those affected. How that is to be done, must be decided in Committee. I think the House should realise that the position in Ireland is similar to that in Scotland, which is a whiskey-drinking country. The hon. Member for the Falls Division appears to forget that there is a local veto Act on the Statute Book which applies to Scotland, and which comes into operation this year. It may happen that Glasgow may declare dry and that Paisley may remain wet, and a similar position may take place in Belfast. That is an essential incident in any local veto measure and has occurred in the United States, as to which in this connection the hon Member has told us what took place. I do not think that is an argument to which the House should pay too much attention. We are asking for practically the same legislation for Ireland. The position of the licensee in Ireland has been governed for over forty years by the decision in the Clitheroe case, and I think his claim to adequate compensation if deprived of his licence is unquestionable. The State has duly recognised licensed property in this way that it insists that duty shall be paid on the value of the licence as distinct from the other value of the premises. There was a case the other day in Belfast of a public house in which the value of the site and premises was £5,000, and the Inland Revenue authorities assessed the estate duty on £13,000, thereby assessing the value of the license at £8,000. I am prepared to vote for the Second Reading of this Bill, but I will vote against the Third Reading unless adequate compensation is given.

Mr. RAFFAN: I have been a Member of this House for about ten years and I think this is the first occasion on which I have found myself in opposition to the hon. Member for the Falls Division (Mr. Devlin). I shall not endeavour to compete with him either in eloquence or humour or in his knowledge of Ireland. He indicated that in his view this particular Measure is likely to receive support from English Members who dare not seek to put a similar Bill into operation in their own country. May I say I introduced a similar Bill for England and Wales in the last Session of Parliament and I hope to have the privilege of reintroducing it in this Session, while an hon. Friend introduced a similar Bill for Wales. Therefore, I hope the House may, during the present Session, have the opportunity of deciding upon similar measures with regard to both England and Wales. Might I remind my hon. Friend that a similar Bill, conferring upon local authorities the right to deal with the liquor traffic in their own areas, which is the principle underlying this Bill, passed through this House in 1908. To the best of my recollection, that Bill was supported by the Members of the Irish party. At any rate, the Bill passed through the House by enormous majorities. The Second Heading and the Third Reading were carried by majorities of over two to one, and the Bill went to another place and was there summarily rejected by a great majority. Part of the case which was urged in the 1910 election for a reform of the other place was based upon the summary treatment of that Bill by that House, and on many platforms in this country Irishmen, I am glad to say, were equally eloquent with Englishmen in denouncing the Members of another place for flouting the judgment of this assembly in this matter. I think my hon. Friend was a little harsh in his criticism of temperance men in this House.

Mr. DEVLIN: I did not say temperance men in this House.

Mr. RAFFAN: He will read the report of his speech in the OFFICIAL REPORT, and I am quoting from a note which I took at the time, and I beg his pardon if I misinterpreted what he said, but he
suggested that he had never met a nominal temperance man who was not intemperate in other respects. I would call to his recollection the fact that the man whose name will always be remembered as the pioneer of temperance legislation in this House, I mean Sir Wilfrid Lawson, was a friend of Ireland,-when Ireland had few friends in this House, while those who were associated with Sir Wilfrid Lawson were always amongst the warmest friends of Irish self-government. I support this Measure, because this Measure is an instalment of self-government for the people of Ireland, and I confess that I view with some astonishment the change of rôle among the Members for the Northern and Southern Divisions of Ireland. The Members for the North of Iiland come forward with a measure of self-determination for the people of Ireland, and they say, with regard to this liquor traffic, that this is not a matter which should be settled for the people of Ireland in the various districts by anybody else. They say, "Let the people of Ireland themselves say, each in their own district, how they will deal with this matter," and then the hon. Member for the Falls Division rises in his place—and he is the most eloquent defender of vested interests that I have heard in this House during the present Session and he is altogether opposed to this modest measure of self-determination. He says that anybody who advocates self-determination by Home Rule is inconsistent in supporting this Bill. I say, on the contrary, that anybody who is in favour of self determination for the Irish people, is inconsistent if he opposes this Measure, because the Measure simply says that the people of Ireland will be able to deal with this matter in their own way in their respective areas. My hon. Friend says the people in the South and West of Ireland do not desire this Measure, only a few fanatical people in Belfast, but if that be so, nowhere in the South and West of Ireland will even a poll be taken, because it is essential that one-tenth of the electors in any area should sign a requisition and lay it before the authorities before even the initial steps are taken and before a poll of the people is taken with regard to this matter. If in the south and west, which my hon.
4.0 P.M.
Friend thinks is so benighted, that it is impossible to find support for this, the people in those areas will be animated by the desire to save their liberty, and, if they wish to have the liquor traffic there, they have only to go to the poll and, if they wish things to remain as they are, things will remain as they are. I may say that, in my own modest way, I have all my life been a strong supporter of self-government for the Irish people. My friend, Michael Davitt, who was one of the bravest of Irishmen, one of the ablest and most sincere supporters of the Irish cause in this House, gave me, I remember, as an illustration of the need for Ireland to deal with her own affairs, the fact that Ireland was overrun with public-houses. He gave me figures which showed that in Ireland the number of public-houses to the population was about twice as high as the number in this country, and in some areas it was three, four, and five times as high, and he said that if the justices dealing with these matters had been really animated with a sincere desire for the welfare of the people, they would never have allowed all these public-houses to be planted down there. This is an opportunity for the people of Ireland to right the wrongs of which my friend Mr. Michael Davitt spoke. For this reason, I hope the House will agree to pass this Measure into law. I hope that this small instalment of Home Rule, if it is passed, wilt be but a precursor of a greater and large measure of Home Rule, which will give the right to the Irish people not only to deal with the liquor traffic, but the right to control their own destinies as they desire.
In the meantime, I fail to see that my hon. Friend, with all his eloquence and with all his humour, has been able to make out a really effective case. He ridicules the idea of dealing with the liquor traffic by local option. He says it is a measure which will not work. Wherever you have English-speaking people, except here, they have dealt with the matter in this manner. They dealt with it in this way in a large portion of America before adopting the prohibitory law. So in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. My hon. Friend may be assured that this is not a matter which can be left alone. I am one who was greatly disheartened at the result of the last Election. I felt that many great causes which were dear
to me were put back, perhaps for a generation. The temperance cause seemed to be put far back. I do not know if there are fewer temperance men in the House of Commons, but it seems that the clock has been put far back. There was an event here, however, only a few short weeks ago, when, for the first time, someone came here who could speak in her own name for the wives and mothers of this country. I have been up and down the country since then, and moved amongst the people who are interested in this matter. I do not agree with the Noble Lady who sits for Plymouth in all she Says. I do not believe in the remedy of State purchase which she proposes, but I believe the speech which she made has stirred the hearts of the women of this country, and I do not believe any party will be able to go before the women of this country at another election without having some real policy with regard to this question. I do not think you will find a better policy than this. The policy put forward by the hon. Gentleman is that we are not to legislate in advance of public sentiment, and that if anywhere public sentiment desires things to remain as they are for the time being, the evil must remain. But we say that where public sentiment amongst men and women is so keen that a majority of people desire a change to take place, then an opportunity should be given to the people to make that change, whether it is in England, Wales or Ireland. Whenever there is an opportunity in this House, and whenever a Division is taken, I shall vote for that power being given to the people.

Mr. DONALD: In supporting this measure I should like in the first place to congratulate my hon. Friend who has moved the Second Reading of the Bill on being in the unique position of not only making his maiden speech, but of having the honour to introduce this measure. I do not think I can be described as one of those to whom the hon. Gentleman opposite referred as temperance fanatics. From a 25 years' experience of workshops I know the evil, the curse, and the great inefficiency due to drink. I do not care whether this House agrees with mo or not, I say something must be done in the near future in regard to the liquor traffic. We have had it demonstrated that practically at every street corner in Belfast there is a
public-house. The number is something like 11,156. Over and over again from these benches, and from the opposite benches, I have heard of the intolerable state of affairs in Belfast. Would this House be surprised to know that in respect to these public-houses the proprietors are Roman Catholics to the extent of over one thousand?

Mr. DEVLIN: That is what you are at!

Mr DONALD: Irrespective of the religious views of the people who own these destructive buildings, I want to see this matter remedied. It is asserted that we have no mandate from the people of our country in regard to this Bill. Only this morning I received a letter from the Secretary of the Methodist Council in Ireland asking me, on behalf of 60,000 Irish Methodists, to support this Bill. Surely that is sufficient justification for me to rise at this moment? What a state of affairs, as my hon. Friend said, in this as well as in the neighbouring country! Take 16 of our large towns in England to-day. In 1918 there were 6,835 convictions for drunkardncss. Take the following 12 months. These convictions had increased to 11,392. That, surely, is a state of affairs that cannot go on in either Ireland, England, Wales or Scotland? It is up to this House to remedy that state of affairs. I think we should embody in the Act the right of the people themselves to say whether public-houses shall be set up at every street corner or not, and not leave it to the law to decide that point. I was one of those who claimed that we should have Peace with Honour, and I wanted a peace whereby our men would not be tempted to intoxication. What did I see on the evening when I went out to celebrate the Peace. I found men going home at midnight under the influence of drink. Is that the way to celebrate Peace? I venture to say it is not. Again, you have only to go into the suburbs of London on a Sunday afternoon and evening to find men and women with their children going into these dens of hell, as I call them. They are nothing short of that. Is it a proper way to bring up children to take them into public-houses? Go to a man, irrespective of whether he drinks or not, and ask him if he would like to see his boy or girl enter a public-house. He will reply,
"Certainly not!" I venture to submit that it is up to this House to set a good example to the country by passing this Bill, and thereby giving us a right in Belfast to show a good example to other parts of Ireland.
I know some hon. Members of this House are delighted to go over to Ireland to get a good glass of Irish whisky. I do not envy them that. I do not care whether a man takes a glass or not, but I do say that something will have to be done in the near future with regard to the drinking habits of our country. If we are going to be an efficient nation this is the first step towards that end. I have been a working man myself practically all my life. I know that one-third of the time that a man loses is due to the influence of drink. A man is hardly fit for work in the morning if he is drunk over night; he cannot do his work, because he wants a glass before he starts. Therefore he is not an efficient workman. Any employer will tell you that. When engaging a man the question is often put "does he take drink?" Not infrequently, if the reply is that he does take a little, the employer says, "I will not appoint a man who takes drink."

Mr. DEVLIN: Even a little?

Mr. DONALD: That does not matter. I am not accustomed to Parliamentary procedure, or to interruptions when I am speaking, and if the hon. Member will allow mc, I can assure him I will not detain the House long. But this is a question which influences every Member of the House. In Liverpool, in the year 1919, there were 2,714 convictions for drunkenness; in the following year there were 4,652.

Mr. J. JONES: And how many people are in Liverpool in a year?

Mr. DONALD: If the hon. Member will allow me, I will not take up much more time. I know that anything which comes from him, when he gets his chance to speak, will not be in favour of the Bill. That, at any rate, is my experience of the hon. Member. Now let me take the case of Newcastle. In 1918 the charges for drunkenness numbered 1,421; in 1919 they went up to 1,658. Surely that is a matter for the consideration not only of Irishmen, but also of Englishmen and Scotsmen. I hope that a Bill will be brought in by the Government in order that something
may be done with regard to this question. What has taken place in America? America to-day has £400,000,000 as the result of temperance reform in that country. Why should we not do ditto in this country I I beg to support the Measure before the House.

Mr. J. JONES: I should not trouble the House with any remarks of mine had this Bill simply confined itself to Ireland, although I am an Irishman. The principle of this Bill is simply "Trying it on the dog." By means of a subterfuge, it introduces a principle which I venture to suggest, expressing the opinion of the class to which I belong after very many years' experience, the people of this country will never accept. The first Clause of the Bill says that, if the majority in a certain district decide to introduce Prohibition, then that majority shall have the right to say to the minority: "You cannot have a drink of intoxicating liquor. You can do anything you like; you can go out with another man's wife; you can exhaust the possibilities of every other kind of vice, but drink is the one thing that must be particularly barred against you." The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken referred to myself as though I were a horrible example. I plead guilty to having a drink when I like, and I am not going to ask any Noble Lady or any hon. Member of this House whether I shall have one or not so long as I can pay for it.

Mr. WIGNALL: That is Local Option.

Mr. JONES: Yes, and it is because it interferes with my individual liberty to have a drink, and because you, as a Pussyfoot, think that I ought not to have it, that I am opposing this Measure. I admit the right of the majority to decide great questions of national importance.

Viscountess ASTOR: This is one.

Mr. JONES: It is not. I venture to suggest that my taking a glass of beer or of stout or of whiskey does not necessarily interfere with your liberty. It does not interfere with efficiency, because, if that were so, those nations that; have been teetotal from time immemorial should be the most efficient, and the workers in those countries where temperance, so-called, reigns supreme should be the most effective workers. Have the Mahomedans proved their capacity in this direction I They have had a longer civilisation than
we have. They claim to have been civilised before we were. Yet in the long history of man's struggle against natural obstacles they have gone down, and they are the most inefficient nation in the world, because, as soon as a workman proves that he can live on the smell of an oil rag, that will be his wages. Individual liberty is worth something more than mere political theory. In spite of those who may be opposed to me, I am going to express my opinion. I might easily find fault with some of the virtues of which some of my friends boast. I happen to reside in a dock district. You want to curb the power of drink in the districts where it does the most damage. I suggest that the districts where drink does the most damage are just those districts where the people will vote for drink. If you go down into the poor neighbourhoods of the East End of London you will find that the men and women there will vote in favour of the continuation of the existing policy. Does that give you control of the liquor traffic? It does not.

Mr. RAFFAN: That is not the experience of any Member of the House of Commons.

Mr. JONES: If you take all the votes that have taken place in this country on this matter, you will find that it was opposition to Local Veto that defeated all your previous legislative proposals.

Mr. RAFFAN: Perhaps it was.

Mr. JONES: You will find that so far as the great mass of the workers of this country are concerned, no proposal for Local Veto alone will ever win a constituency. Local Veto in the past has represented a reduction in the number of licences. There are too many public houses. That is quite agreed by everybody. But in this Bill you have got prohibition. Let us be honest. There is no intemperance reformer who does not agree that there are more public houses than are wanted. Well, we do not want a public house at every corner of the street. We want the traffic regulated, controlled, and reformed. But here we have, in the first Clause of the Bill, a proposal that if a certain number of people vote in a certain way, the minority shall not have any right to have even a glass of beer. I say that that proposal will never be
accepted by the workers of this country, in the main. The mover of this Bill wants to force upon the people of Ireland something that they are not prepared to accept. The majority of the people of Ireland are not represented in this Parliament. Why should a minority try to force down the throats of the people who are the majority, something which they are not prepared to accept? As representative of an East of London constituency, I say that we are prepared to vote for a real temperance measure, to see that the drink traffic is properly organised and controlled. But we protest against the idea that a mere majority shall say to the minority, "You cannot have a drink." Then we are told about inefficiency and under-production. We always hear this story when a Bill like this comes up. It is most extraordinary that the people in the countries where the traffic in drink prevails produce more than the people where the drink traffic does not prevail. There is the least percentage of production in the coutries where drink is not allowed at all. There is talk about prohibition in America. Those who can afford to pay for it can get drink in America. I have been told by my friends who have been in America that you can get blind drunk every night there, if you have the means of paying for it. It is only the workmen who eon-not afford it.

Viscountess ASTOR: Who are your friends?

Mr. JONES: ; I hope I shall never have friends imported from America. I have friends who went out to America who were connected with the labour movement, and they told me that anybody could get drink who could afford to pay for it.

Viscountess ASTOR: You said they got drunk every night.

Mr. JONES: They said they could if they wanted to.

Mr. DEVLIN: Because they were your friends they did not?

Mr. JONES: They were trying to understand the country in which they found themselves. I say, with regard to this Bill, that it introduces an insidious principle, and it is going to continue that principle to the disadvantage of the
individual worker. That is the man it will affect. All these laws strike hardest at the working men. If a man is poor he is hit by all these restricted laws, but a man can evade them if he has the cash. Therefore, whatever the consequences may be, I oppose this kind of legislation, whilst I am in favour of the best kind of temperance legislation, and that is organisation of the drink traffic on such a basis that the public house can be turned into a real house for the people.

Mr. McGUFFIN: The hon. Member (Mr. Devlin) spoke of the lack of argument in the speeches of the Mover and Seconder. I do not think he himself has given us any argument for the attitude he takes up. I do not think the social aspect of the question requires to be debated. I should have thought his own experience would at least have convinced him that it was not necessary to introduce moral and social arguments in support of the Bill. I do not think he was argumentative. He has not left us much to reply to. He pleaded for the trade without showing reason why the Bill should not be adopted. It is a democratic Measure, and as a democrat, I support it. I have been associated all my life with the class of people this Bill is intended to help. If the hon. Member had been associated with the class of people who are demoralised by strong drink, he would know that very little could be urged against the Bill from the moral or the social standpoint. You see people going out into the city with wages quite sufficient to support their homes in comfort, but when you get to the home you find it a nest of destitution and misery. What has occasioned it? The temptation that is placed in the way of those who might otherwise be sober and virtuous. There is no use in saying the Bill will not achieve the purpose we have in view. We hope it will, and I think our experience during the War of the limitation of the sale of liquor is a proof that it will, and if you lessen the temptation you will have corresponding results. It has been urged that we are forgetful of the claims of the trade. I, for one, am not. I am not a convert to the principle of compensation. When I appeared before my constituents I said I was convinced that it was only justice to the publican that he should be compensated if it was proposed to confiscate his property. I adhere to that, and
I regret that it was not possible to introduce such a Clause, but the Bill would have been ruled out of order if it had been introduced. We are sorry we were not able to please the hon. Member in respect of this matter, for I, at least, and I am sure the great proportion of my colleagues, would favour the principle of compensation. I am not out against the publican as a publican. You will find good-natured, benevolent men in the trade. I was talking to a deputation of them only a fortnight ago. They recognised that there was a reason why there should be introduced a Bill for the restriction of licences. They recognised that there were far too many public-houses, and they were prepared to adopt any means for their reduction, and they even went so far as to say that if a principle were introduced by which they could compensate one another on the limitation of licences they were prepared to accept it. They are practically assenting to our case in so saying, for they are admitting practically the immorality if the trade. We have too many public-houses in Belfast—there is practically one at every corner. It is a lamentable state of affairs, and is it beyond the wit of this House to remedy a situation like that. We have a strong case in so far as Belfast is concerned, but our case is not confined to Belfast, for it relates to the whole of Ireland. There is an enormous consumption of drink and a fearful expenditure, of money in Ireland, out of all proportion, perhaps, to what is taking place either in England or in Scotland. We appeal to the House not to lose sight of the moral and social argument which has only recently been presented by the hon. Member (Viscountess Aster),

Lieut.-Colonel ALLEN: The hon. Member (Mr. Devlin) rather gave the impression that this is almost the first time the question of local veto has been introduced, but I have no doubt that there were very intelligent Members in this House from the year 1880 onwards. In 1880 the House of Commons adopted a local veto Resolution by a majority of 26, in 1881 by a majority of 42, in 1883 by a majority of 87, and in 1893 by 95. The Government then embodied a veto power in the Local Control Bill. In 1908 it embodied it in the Asquith Licensing Bill which was passed by the Commons by a two-thirds majority. In 1913, the Commons passed the Scottish Local Veto
Act, and strange as it may appear, on that occasion those who were present of my hon. Friends from other parts of Ireland voted with the Government, and I find included in the names of those who voted on that occasion for local veto, Messrs. Dillon, Healy, Flavin, the late Mr. John Redmond, the late Mr. William Redmond, and so on.

Mr. DEVLIN: ; Did you find me there?

Lieut.-Colonel ALLEN: No I am sorry you were not, but the names which I have given are representative of the party which the hon. Member represents. I believe that I know the reason why they voted as they did on that occasion. They were part and parcel of the Government then in office, and it was their business to support that Government, because that Government had decided to sell the people of Ulster. Now they say that what is a good thing for the people of Scotland is a very bad thing in Ireland.

Mr. DEVLIN: You voted against the Scotch Bill.

Lieut.-Colonel ALLEN: I am only a new Member of the House.

Mr. DEVLIN: Carson did.

Lieut.-Colonel ALLEN: Had I been present as a Member I would have voted for it. I do not change my opinions as opportunists would. It is said that there is no demand for local veto. When you consider that in some towns in Ireland for every eleven houses there is one public-house, that is a great reason and a great moral demand for a discontinuance of that state of things. We can hardly believe it possible that in some places in Ireland there is a public-house for every sixteen inhabitants. That is a most disgraceful state of things.

Mr. DEVLIN: Who put them there? The British Government—your party.

Lieut.-Colonel ALLEN: I was very much interested in the Report of the Departmental Committee on the question of State Control of the drink traffic in Ireland. That Committee consisted of Members of all parties. The Scottish and English Committees brought in a report on State Control, but the Irish Committee came to the conclusion that State Control could hardly be exercised
in Ireland. They also came to the conclusion that there were far too many public-houses in Ireland, and that they could easily reduce that number by one half. A member of that Committee (Mr. T. O'Donnell, M.P.) belonged to the same party as the hon. Member (Mr. Devlin), and he said in some reservations on the report:
The drink traffic as it exists in Ireland to-day is one of the most serious hindrances to national progress,
I invite the attention of hon. Members to that expression. If that is not a demand for the reduction of public-houses, what is?

Mr. J. JONES: Not for prohibition.

Lieut.-Colonel ALLEN: He goes on to say:
To lessen its ravages, to confine and limit its evil influence in the manner suggested in the alternative scheme would be such a great national blessing. …The human wrecks, physical and moral, which one sees in our cities and towns, the ruined homes, the squalor, poverty and decay, the neglected, underfed and diseased children, ail present a spectacle calling for immediate and radical treatment.
That is a reserved statement by a Member of the party opposite. Seventy-five per cent. of the people in our workhouses in Ireland are there through drink.

Mr. J. JONES: That is not true.

Lieut.-Colonel ALLEN: It is well known that pauperism follows the public-house. Where there is a large number of public houses in Ireland we find that pauperism is the greatest. It is the same thing in regard to our gaols. Sixty or seventy per cent. of those in our gaols in Ireland are there through drink. Yet we find sensible Members like my hon. Friend (Mr. Devlin) saying that this is not a Bill that ought to be introduced. No one can deny from statistics that have been published from time to time that we have far too many public-houses in Ireland, and this is a way of remedying it. This is a question of local control, local legislation, local powers, local option. If the people of any particular district do not want to reduce the number of public-houses they have only to say so, by a majority, but that is not an argument why, if in another district they desire to reduce the public-houses, they should not have the opportunity of saying so and getting rid of this evil in our midst, I
hope the House will view this Bill sympathetically, and give us an opportunity in Ireland of taking away the stain which is caused by drink in that country.

Sir F. BANBURY: The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has used arguments, not in favour of this Bill, but in favour of another Bill for reducing the number of public-houses in Ireland. This Bill would not reduce the number of public-housas, but it might have the effect of abolishing altogether public-houses in one particular area while allowing them to continue or even to be extended in another area. We understand that this is only the thin end of the wedge. A hon. Member has spoken of the very great evils which have followed the evil habit, as I think it is, of drinking. Nobody regrets more than I do that a very large number of the people in Ireland apparently are addicted to the habit of drinking. When I say "addicted to drink" I do not mean that they are drunk in the police court sense, but that they really are drunk. What is the remedy? Not this Bill. Let the supporters of the Bill set an example, in the workshop and in other places. Let anyone look back. Sixty or seventy years ago it was the custom for people who, perhaps, in those days were called the upper classes, to drink one or two bottles of port after dinner. There were, I think, men who were called one-bottle men, two-bottle men, and three-bottle men, and sometimes attendants came in and removed their masters from under the table. That has all disappeared, but not by legislation. It disappeared because there had been good examples set, or because it had become bad form to do that sort of thing. Why should that not spread? I think it is spreading. I remember that when I first joined this House I used always to walk home in the evening, and my way lay past Wellington Barracks. In those days we sat later. We never got away from the House until 12.30, and sometimes we were later. I never missed seeing a patrol of a corporal and a couple of men who paced up and down Wellington Barracks in order to take home the soldiers who have had too much to drink. During the last ten or twelve years that has disappeared, and now you never see such a thing. I admit that in the last year I
have seen one or two cases. I do not know whether they have arisen from peace celebrations or not. I have seen during the last year or two one or two cases, but nothing like what I used to see in the old days, and I think that experience will be borne out by hon. Members generally as to London but I do not Know much about the town in the north. The hon. Member (Mr Donald) quoted statistics as to convictions in Bristol and Liverpool, but that is no argument on a Bill dealing only with Ireland.

Mr. DONALD: I hope when we discuss the Home Rule Bill that the right hon. Gentleman will not take part in the Debate.

Mr. DEVLIN: I hope he will.

Sir F. BANBURY: I shall take part in the Home Rule Debate and vote against it An hon. Gentleman opposite deplored the result of the last General Election, and seems to think if this Bill had been in existence that would have been altered. He pointed out that we passed a Bill of this kind for Scotland, but because we have done one foolish thing is no reason why we should do another. We do not know yet what is going to happen in Scotland. A good many hon. Members regretted that there is no monetary compensation provided in this Bill, and said that it could not be inserted. They could have put in a clause providing, if the Bill became law, that the teetotallers or those who voted for the Bill should compensate the publicans out of their own pockets. The question of area was compensate the publicans out of their Constituency of the hon. Member for Falls might decide not to go dry. Then there will not be any local veto there.

Mr. DEVLIN: And they would all come down to me.

Sir F. BANBURY: Yes, and they could indulge in their bad habits. There is no provision as to fairs. I unfortunately have not been there, but I understand there are a great many fairs in Ireland. We will say there happens to be a horse fair in a prohibited area. I have always understood that when one Irishman sells another Irishman a horse they adjourn somewhere and have a drink. What would happen under this Bill It would
have an extremely bad effect upon one of the principal trades in Ireland, which is selling horses to Englishmen who do not know so much about them as the Irishmen do. Then we come to the question about Home Rule. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Raffan) said he was in favour of self-determination. I am not; I do not believe in self-determination. I do not quite know what it is, and I do not believe anybody else does either; but the hon. Member who is in favour of self-determination says the Bill is a step in the direction of Home Rule. I am against Home Rule, and therefore, if this Bill is a step in the direction of Home Rule, I should have to oppose it on that ground alone. An hon. Gentleman talked about the introduction of children into public-houses. I admit it is not nice or Christian, or good for children to be taken into public-houses, but there again example comes in, and here in England we passed the Children's Act, which prohibited children under a certain age being taken into public-houses.

Mr. J. JONES: ; Not into hotels.

Sir F. BANBURY: That is another point. I have always been an ardent supporter of the Ulster party, and supposing their leader asked me to stay at a hotel in Belfast, am I not to have a glass of sherry if I want it?

Mr. DEVLIN: ; You will have to come to me for it.

Sir F. BANBURY: It is said that English Members ought not to interfere in this discussion, but that is one of the reasons which prompts me to get up. I hold that we are part of a great Empire and that there is no such thing as a Scotch Member or an Irish Member or an English Member. We are all Members of Parliament for the Empire, and therefore I say that that argument against English Members intervening in an Irish Debate is a wrong one. Now there are good results from a moderate consumption of alcoholic liquor. I remember very well a very interesting experiment which was tried by the "Field" newspaper about 25 years' ago, when there was a a great discussion as to whether or not men working in a harvest field could do a harder day's work in harvesting corn or hay if they had beer to drink or if they had water Several people wrote letters about it, and
eventually it was determined to have a trial. A certain number of men were put in one field, and a certain number in another. Some were supplied with beer and some with water. Which does the House think won? [HON. MEMBERS: "Water!"] Hon. Members are quite wrong. It was the beer that won, and it shows that a moderate consumption of beer is an advantage. I have found it myself. I very often do hard work in the harvest field and I must admit I have always been very glad to come back and have something to drink. An hon. Member gave the number of landlords in Ireland and said there were a number of Catholics. What on earth has that got to do with this? I think I have said enough to show that this is a Bill which should not be passed after a short discussion on a Friday afternoon.

Mr. W. COOTE: rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put"; but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Mr. BARTLEY DENNISS: I think every member in this House realises the evil that results from excessive drinking, and would be ready to pass any measure which would obviate the evil; but this particular Bill advocates a system which proposes the most futile method of proceeding which has ever been brought before the House. I happen to live on the edge of a very small urban area in Middlesex, and when the Liquor Control Board was set up they restricted the areas of drink in Middlesex, but not in Buckinghamshire. The result was that as the place where I live is on the borders of Buckinghamshire, only separated by a small stream, all the people in London who are accustomed to take too much drink came to the place, crossed the bridge into Buckinghamshire, and
drank all day until late at night, and were found by the police in a drunken condition in the road. They were not the inhabitants of the place where I live or of Buckinghamshire, and those people nothing could deter from drink except absolute prohibition. Those are people with whom it is impossible to deal. There is the great question whether everyone else shall be prohibited from drink in order that that very small minority shall be saved from themselves, or whether proceedings shall be taken against them to prevent them from getting drunk by putting them into institutions. If one goes to France one never finds any question of prohibition.

It being Five of the Clock, and objection being taken to further Proceeding, the Debate stood Adjourned.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

LAW OF PROPEETY BILL.

Ordered, "That the Lords Message [9th March] communicating the Resolution, That it is desirable the Bill be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament, be now considered."

Lords Message considered accordingly.

Resolved, "That this House doth concur with the Lords in the said Resolution."—[Colonel Gibbs.]

Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3.

Adjourned at One Minute after Five o'clock, till Monday next, March 15th, 1920.